Buzz off, Facebook
In contrast to a week allegations of “internecine warfare among Microsoft’s established divisions and a dysfunctional corporate culture that squashes innovation” comes yet-another-innovative-Google-product, Google Buzz. Google Buzz is Mountain View’s first convincing entry into Social Networking, that isn’t limited to merely an API.
Gina Trappani, posting on Smarterware, says it all: “This ain’t no Orkut.”. Google are very serious about taking down Twitter and Facebook.
Jason Calacanis, posting to his email list this morning, made it clear that he sees this as a major challenge to facebook:
1. Google Buzz 1.0 is better than Facebook after six or seven years.
2. Facebook’s history is one filled with stealing other people’s
innovations and doing them better (i.e. Zuckerberg has stolen every
idea Evan Williams and the Twitter team have released). How ironic now
that Google has out “Facebooked” Facebook. Google3. Google has excellent privacy record and Facebook is a disaster.
Most folks do not trust Zuckerberg and Facebook any more because of
their privacy record (filled with lawsuits) and because they steal
every good idea they see (i.e. Twitter’s innovations and FourSquare’s
checking in).4. Google Buzz auto generates your network–this is MUCH better
process than Facebook’s.5. Google Buzz is way faster than the sluggish Facebook–this is a
HUGE advantage.6. Google Buzz puts relies and updates into your GMAIL as
threads–this is BRILLIANT and a HUGE advantage.
Perhaps Jason is spot on. It certainly does seem that Google has almost everything in place to flip the switch, and take over the Social Networking space.
- Status
Google: Buzz Status and GTalk Status
Facebook: Status - Photos
Google: Picassa,
Facebook: Photos - Videos
Google: YouTube,
Facebook: Videos - Email
Google: Gmail since 2004
Facebook: Project Titan (not yet released) - Instant Messaging
Google: GTalk with XMPP/Jabber
Facebook: Facebook Chat (XMPP just released) - Applications
Google: Not yet.
Facebook: Farmville, and a few others. - Media Sharing
Google: Google Reader, YouTube
Facebook: A mix of rss importing tools, and (possibly) the recently purchased FriendFeed.
The only problem, in the words of the imitable Reinhardt Zündorf, is: “This is lame, now I can’t find out which dog I am (via a five bullet questionnaire) and share it with my facebook friends”.
I think Google Buzz is kind of cool… but is there really space for Yet Another Social Networking Site (YASNS ©)?
Most of my contact list immediately jumped on the buzz bandwagon, but almost as quickly as they started using it, just as quickly did it fizzle out (in my space anyway)
Monty
18 Feb 10 at 1:57 pm