So Google announced Buzz a few days ago. Here’s a quote from an article in The New York Times:
The service is built into Gmail, which already has 176 million users, according to comScore, a market research company. And Buzz comes with a built-in circle of friends, a group that is automatically selected by Google based on the people that a user communicates with most frequently in Gmail and on Google’s chat service.
Like other social services, Buzz allows users to post status updates that include text; photos from services like Google’s Picasa and Yahoo’s Flickr; videos from YouTube; and messages from Twitter. Analysts say many of its features mimic those of Facebook.
So a new social network, kinda, from Google with 176 million potential users. In September last year I was thinking about Google and social networks and wrote out an idea for a new “work-life” social network for Google which I called Sonnet (from a set of simple parts forming a complex whole, but also playing off the phrase Social Network). I wrote:
Sonnet would link Google’s social products – chat, implemented with Rosy/video chat/email/iGoogle (with a twitter-like gadget added) - and its other products to produce this “work-life social network.”
and I talked about designing a little Sonnet flag and adding it to all Google products and I wrote:
Does this add any functionality to any of Google’s offerings? No. What it does is bring all the products and services under one roof.
The reason I described Sonnet as a “work-life social network” was because in thinking about how Google could gain a competitive edge over Facebook (which seemed to me to have a lock on the “social-life” social network) I thought Google could concentrate on creating a social network that people would use at work among work colleagues. So one of my design thoughts was to add a twitter-like gadget to iGoogle and I even suggested the same at the Google product ideas site for iGoogle (it’s running at 16 like and 12 dislike at the moment, by the way).
But apparently Google didn’t read my post (ha!). Google integrated Buzz into gmail and added the status update function in there. 176 million potential users at the drop of a hat. It remains to be seen whether people will pick up on two social-life social networks. Perhaps Buzz will indeed turn into a “work-life” social network. I’m still hoping for vindication. In fact there are already privacy concerns about that integration such that there’s mention that Google will actually separate Buzz from Gmail. [update 2/13/10 - well, not quite ... ]
But there is one thing missing. In the quote above you’ll notice that I mention Rosy implemented into chat in this idea for a social network. Rosy is Google’s instantaneous translation tool which appeared in the Google Wave product demo. I first wrote about it in June last year, noting what an amazing product it is and then followed up on that with a post in September in which I suggested Google integrate it with Google chat (actually I first suggested integrating it into Facebook chat, which wasn’t a good idea (ha! again).) People all over the world could then chat in different languages with Rosy doing the translation in the middle. I even came up with a test project. But it isn’t in Buzz and I wondered why, so I checked it out. The reason is – it’s not working in Google Wave yet, as far as I can tell, which is a shame. So no Rosy.
So privacy concerns, no Rosy and competing directly with Facebook, which may or may not work out. Just from the perspective of this mid-forties guy grappling with technology it’s going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
