Thursday, February 11, 2010

Is it worth the Buzz??


Had my hands on Google Buzz today. To be frank, I don't see anything innovative here that is worth the attention it has got. A simple search on twitter shows how people are crazy about this copycat. This feature is exactly the same as what Facebook calls as "Status Updates"(or Am I missing something here??) . Everyone of us use the facebook status update feature almost everyday, but still why do we see so much of excitement around the Google's version of the same??

In my opinion, Social networking concepts can never fit in a e-mail client. E-mails are mainly for one-on-one communication or one-on-few communication, whereas social networking status updates are about one-on-many communication. You cannot bring one-on-many into a one-on-few application (but the reverse is always easy, remember Chat inside GMail??).

It is not so comfortable for me to do networking over mail because of three reasons:

  1. I go to gmail, to check/send my mails, nothing else (not to do know what my friends are doing).
  2. Using e-mail client to do networking is like using screw-driver to dig a well. It doesn't do justice, I need the right tools.
  3. As long as gmail is just a email client it will be sweet and simple. Buzz is going it make it more cluttered.
Yahoo introduced the same feature in its mail a year back(it is called Yahoo Profiles), but it didn't reach even the day-to-day Yahoo mail users. Infact, the Yahoo version had much more features than Google Buzz. Personally I am not comfortable with both Google Buzz and Yahoo profiles because of the reasons I quoted above.

Facebook is growing like water hyacinth, lot of internet players including Google is facing a big threat because of facebook. Google Wave was the first initiative from Google to fight back, but it didn't do justice to the company (I liked the demo of Google Wave very much tough). For an end-user, making his e-mail a part of social networking is a easier task than making his social networking as a part of e-mail. Knowing this fact, Facebook would soon bring in e-mail into their product, that would definitely bring everything under one roof for its users.

The usual "Google" factor is driving this feature as of now, it might be yet another Google Wave (or possibly orkut???). Let us wait and see.

P.S: What I have expressed above is only my personal view and I don't represent any company in anyway


6 comments:

Tom Praison said...

Totally agree.. I like gmail only thats because its simple and do what it has to do.

Arula said...

i too totally agree with you. I didnt like google buzz in first place. I would still prefer twitter and facebook.

Sankar said...

When Hotmail was first introduced lots of people said: What no offline access ? What is the point of web-based email. who will use it etc.

However services like GMail proved them all wrong.

The reason for integrating Buzz into GMail is to address the main reason for the failure of wave (ppl. didnt bother to go into wave). Now since GMail has become quintessential for day-to-day life, google is sneaking in Buzz along with it.

I won't rule out buzz or wave completely and will wait. May be the younger generation (who decide the trends) may like all the social-interactions (that help them get laid ;) ) and will make such wave/FB style as the default way of communication obsoleting old-email way of communication (just the way how email obsoleted postal-mails) etc.

Okay. enough of blabber and I should keep quiet.

Arun Raghavendar said...

@Sankar,

I would also wait for Wave and it can be the facebook of tomorrow. I say that because, GWave has whole new set of innovative ideas and features, it might takes its own time to get into peoples life.

But as far as GBuzz is concerned, there is nothing new in it and they have just reinvented the wheel. Why should I move from Facebook/Twiiter to GBuzz? What is there in GBuzz that isn't there in FB/Twiiter? Unless there is a solid answer for this question, GBuzz mayn't serve the purpose that you have said above.

DK said...

Slightly out of topic, I am pissed of one or two guys who post crap calling it micro blogging in FB and this will just be an add on for more crap and when I login searching for something useful, I will stop finding it useful.

Arun Raghavendar said...

DK, I Agree.. :D
Even I was annoyed by one or two guys in FB/Twitter, I turned cruel and blocked their updates.. Now my FB and twitter pages look much better.. :)