Google Buzz: It Will Change The Future

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:16:56 -0500

The pundits have missed a key point - most have failed to recognize that Buzz [1.0] was built for GMail's 200+ million active users.

Many have said that the core value in Google Buzz is that it aggregates disparate (and relevant) social information into one place. The reaction to this has been lukewarm and few experts believe it will be successful in winning over the hearts and minds of seemingly happy Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook users.

I agree with this assertion only to the extent that we assume Buzz is feature-complete and unlikely to change dramatically in the next five quarters. I have a sense that those of us evaluating it have failed to recognize that Buzz [1.0] was built for GMail's 200+ million active users. Once these users get accustomed to it and they provide feedback, you'll see Buzz 2.0 (Q1, 2011 I suspect).

By then a significant number of the 200 million GMail users will have well-established social networks that have been slowly chipping away at Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook users, causing user-base erosion at the edges of these services. The GMail/Buzz community who are magically being enticed by this new ability to share quickly and without friction, will slowly tug at friends who don't use GMail, and over time many of those folks will become Buzz-converts.

When Buzz 2.0 emerges in 2011 with seamless integration to Outlook and other email services, Google will have a head of steam, 275 million GMail users, and most will be comfortable sharing micro-posts and other information artifacts through Buzz. It will only be a matter of time before the features of Wave and other Google business apps creep into the feature set, possibly as soon as Q3 2010. By 2012 Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook will have a real tiger by the tail trying to maintain market share for Facebook activity that involves communication and sharing - their core benefits.

Indeed, Facebook is not the new MySpace as [some] pundits have claimed. Instead, it will emerge as one of the first meso-scale SENs (social entertainment network). FriendFeed will go away not because there are better alternatives, but because it will be off-message and out of context for the Facebook that will emerge in 2012. Twitter and other 140 character systems will become quasi-protocols because they're useful infrastructure elements for the greater segment known as micro-posts and they'll continue to meet real-time information awareness requirements.

I've always thought that there was healthy demand for mini-posts -- i.e., longer than 140 characters and shorter (and more casual) information objects than a 600 word blog post.

A conversation thread in Buzz is a good example of mini-posts; brief buzzes become deeper conversations; some comments transition into new posts; some emerge as macro-posts in other blogs (this blog post began its existence as a comment). Ergo, my intent was to write a quick comment, but I ended up with an article. But more important, Buzz can capture both small and large artifacts.

While Twitter meets real-time awareness requirements, Buzz provides a medium for real-time conversations that may (or may not) stem from three forms of communication; (i) micro-posts, (ii) macro-posts, or (iii) email threads.

Google has brilliantly positioned a fraction of Wave's functionality (AKA Buzz) in the center of the publishing triangle. Other features of Wave will be slowly blended into the infrastructure in a manner that will transform the triangle into a square (i.e., adding another cornerstone).

Imagine a rinse-repeat strategy that (over time) continues to add more cornerstones of communication, sharing, new information object types, search, identity, security, private spaces, etc. The strategy seems clear - Google is building a circle that encompasses a comprehensive topology of all information artifacts people create, share, and consume.

Brilliant.

Into the MyST | MyST Technology Partners, Inc.

Google Buzz: It Will Change The Future

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