News Hit

Google has just announced Google Buzz, it's newest attempt at social networking and what could be seen as its tilt to take on Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz is a new feature of Gmail, Google's email service, and appears to be Google's attempt to combine Facebook and Twitter's functionality with Gmail. Since every Gmail user now has access to it, Buzz already has a user base numbering 176 million; however, whether it is embraced by Gmail users remains to be seen. Also, with over 400 million users on Facebook, its hard to see how Buzz could possibly challenge Facebook at this point in time.

But Buzz is hardly Google's first tilt at the social networking market. It has tried to establish social networks previously - with Orkut, Dodgeball, Jaiku and OpenSocial - but none of these have been particularly successful. Indeed, Google, despite its massive size (or perhaps, because of its massive size) has so far been unable to master social networking. Even Google Wave - the beta of which was released to a select number of users late last year - despite being touted as the spiritual successor to email has been widely criticised as combining the worst traits of instant messaging, email and document sharing.

At the moment it would appear that Buzz has been met with a rather lukewarm reception, with some users drawing attention to its questionable privacy settings and others wondering whether it is even worth it for Google to try and pursue social networking through Gmail. I haven't really taken a look at Buzz yet, but it seems to be utterly dependent on how much you use Gmail and how many of your Gmail contacts use their accounts for social emails. There is also the stumbling block of whether other people will embrace the technology or just be bemused by it.

However, despite these shortcomings, there is one area where Buzz could prove superior to Facebook and Twitter - unlike these two social networks, the news feeds of which sometimes fill with so much information that they degenerate into white noise, Buzz is apparently able to filter out the detritus in much the same way that the Google search engine reliably brings up the most relevant destinations for queries. If this function works, it could make Buzz an incredibly valuable tool - especially if you want to network with many others who predominantly use Gmail to send and receive emails.

Still, I doubt that we here at News Hit will be migrating away from our Twitter or Facebook anytime soon!

So what are your thoughts on Buzz? Have you tried it yet? Will you try it?