Google Wave was a pretty big step up from email – and maybe it was a bit too much of a step leap away from the email messaging we are all used to using for it to gain traction in the marketplace. What could be bridging that gap is Buzz, and it is on its way to all Gmail account owners right now.
In true Google fashion, they haven’t built a new network, instead they’ve built a framework to facilitate the content from other networks into their own platform. To start with there is connections to pull in content from Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and Google Reader. I’d expect some kind of Facebook connection to be on its way soon enough. Then once you have connected your accounts all the content from them is aggregated within your Gmail account.
The killer feature of Buzz is something that should have the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla squirming – on iPhone and Android phones the Buzz mobile site can detect your location and tag your Buzz posts with your location, show nearby Buzz activity and also provide you with location relevant data from Google Maps. What’s even more impressive is that its all done within a mobile site, not an app!
I have to say that my first thought was “why?” Closely followed by “for who?” It seems to be another one of Google’s ‘lets take over the world one app at a time’ ideas, no real thought has gone into who would want this and why they would use it. It just seems that Google is showing off it’s technical ability with a ‘look what we did’ kind of attitude. If they could put 5% of that drive and determination into some research to see what people really wanted it would be amazing!
Totally agree amanda.