If you want to watch the Google social product launch as it happens live, click here now.
In case you can’t watch video in your office, I’ll do my best to summarize the high points. I’ll skip the CoveritLive embedding and just keep adding to this post. Just refresh to read what’s new.
Small tidbit: Google has 20,000 employees. I had no idea. That’s amazing.
Gmail: A Google Approach to Mail.
Introducing: Google Buzz!
Todd Jackson, product manager, presents.
Features
1. Auto Following
2. Rich, fast data sharing
3. Public and Private Sharing
4. Inbox Integration – NEW
5. Just the Good Stuff – not the noise or the stuff you don’t care about
So you sign into your Gmail account, and beneath the Inbox link is the Buzz link. You view everything your friends are doing, very similar to FriendFeed.
When sharing links, Google automatically pulls photos from the page the link goes to and allows the user the option to immediately add the photos to their status update. NOTE: The obvious detail is that all users will need a Gmail account, which will automatically shift a ton of people over to Gmail from Yahoo or MSN mail solutions. This is a major step in Google’s attempt to make Google a destination site, like Facebook.
SOME Buzz items go into your Gmail inbox, meaning you won’t want to follow hundreds or thousands of people if you want to ever get to your actual email, emails. @ replies and comments automatically import into your inbox in real-time.
“Organizing the world’s social information is a worldwide problem – one that Google wants to solve.” Google is doing their best to deliver only the content you want (Good Buzz) and hides the content you don’t care about (Bad Buzz).
Now, Onto Mobile!
Vic Gundotra will now speak about Google Buzz for mobile phones.
Relevancy and Ranking – how to make sense of all the various forms of social expression. Google is algorithmically attempting to sort through this information.
Location as a powerful indicator of relevance? Hmm. Sounds dubious. Stay tuned.
There are some fascinating tools for mobile. By clicking “Nearby”, you’ll be able to see what people are saying around you, in case you want to know which restaurants, clubs, or buildings have cool things going on. You’ll be able read what people are saying that you aren’t following. It’s like listening in to the talk at the next table.
Coming soon: Google will launch an enterprise version of Google Buzz. Ooh. That’s going to be REALLY interesting.
Google wants you the user to know that the product is compelling, but not robust and completely issue-free. They want the user to engage the product and give feedback.
Google Wave integration is definitely coming eventually. It’s a “logical next step.” Look for open APIs both in and out for Google Buzz. They expect to set the standard for social sites. Another “Logical next step” is integrating Google Voice or voice translation into Buzz, so that you can speak your Buzz into the system.
Side Note: The most hilarious part of this entire spiel is that EVEN during the Q&A, all four Google speakers REFUSED to say the word “Facebook.” They’d list services that will integrate with Google Buzz like Twitter, Flickr, and “other feeds.”
It’s obvious that they anticipated the comparison to Facebook (and especially FriendFeed), and so they’ve chosen to pretend Facebook doesn’t exist.
