Google attempts to get Buzz back on feet

When Google launched Google Buzz in February this year, nearly 180 million Gmail users impulsively started pinging their friends, scaring the life out of other micro-blogging sites like Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Since its launch, Google was buzzing all across with millions of posts and comments. And there were tweets on "Google Buzz" within every 11 seconds, and technology forums were discussing Buzz with over 1,000 posts per day.

However, though it's early days, and there are no figures to go by, the buzz around Google appears to be on the wane.

Some users, for instance, see no sense in cluttering up their Gmail accounts with Buzz messages. "I already use Facebook and Twitter, and less frequently, LinkedIn. I don't need another social network or status update service, especially one so integrated with email that I use for private communication," says Prema Kashyap, a Bangalore-based professor, over Twitter. Aditya Kuber, director of Pune-based Media Sphere Communications concurs, "Google Buzz came too late and Twitter is better to use. The user interface of Buzz is poor."

Aakriti Bhargava, who runs a consultancy called Boring Brands, too, believes that Buzz got off on a wrong foot. "Availability of several desktop clients makes Twitter even more popular. Clearly, Buzz has a long way to go in this respect." She also argues that merging a social network with email, without a separate interface, is simply perplexing.

"I think Google itself is very unclear as to what it wants to do with Buzz," says Subhash Pais, business head at i9 Communications, adding, "I think with Buzz it came off as a Twitter 'me too' and I think in the social space Facebook, Twitter, YouTube are brands that have become almost generic and hence, Google faces an uphill battle with Buzz."

Kuntal Shukla, a Delhi-based digital marketer, thinks no differently. She, too, finds Buzz losing momentum among the 50 million internet users in the country mainly due to meagre marketing initiatives (undertaken by Google) and also because bulk of the Internet base still feels comfortable with social networking services like Twitter.

There are, of course, users like Rahul Rishi, an engineer by profession, who swear by Google Buzz. Over a Twitter message, he says: "I use Buzz and like it. It's like any other social networking - if you have friends using it, then you will enjoy it."

"Buzz auto generates your network - this is much better than Facebook. Also, Google can take Buzz in pretty broad spread of directions, say like integrate within YouTube, blogs, picture sharing or whatever else Google does," defends Arshiya Ghoman, an independent interior designer over a Facebook message to us.

"Why Google Buzz lost steam was the whole piracy issue that was brought into the limelight and the visible evidence of it being linked to Gmail. That is when people started looking for the Google Buzz "off" button and they couldn't find any, they panicked further," explains Moksh Juneja, social media catalyst of Avignyata.

"It's too early days to take a call," says Harish Tibrewala, joint CEO, Social Wavelength. "The huge amount of excitement is understandable over Buzz since anything done by Google creates a lot of expectation. This said, many of our clients are asking us how to leverage this micro-blogging tool."

The online search giant, on its part, is now trying to right things. On its blog, it admits: "Shortly after launching Google Buzz, we quickly realised we didn't get everything right and moved as fast as possible to improve the Buzz experience. We made a number of changes to the getting started experience based on your feedback, the most significant of which was replacing auto-following with suggestions for people to follow."

"...many of you started using Google Buzz before we made these changes, and we want to help you ensure that Buzz is set up the way you want...Rather than automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with most, Google Buzz now suggests people for you to follow instead. This way, Buzz is still simple to set up (no one wants to peck out an entire social network from scratch) but you aren't set up to follow anyone until you choose to do so."

Buzz can be said to be a stream of status updates, pictures, links, and videos from your friends. You can 'like' these items and comment on them. And if you use Flickr, Picasa, Google Reader, or Twitter, you can also automatically have those items imported into your stream. And Buzz will recommend items you might like based on your friends' activity.

"The first thing we do when we find something is to share it," reasons Google, adding: "...more sharing happens online." The inclusion of GPS-tagging for the text messages on Buzz was a very interesting feature and complimented the social networking tool. Incidentally, there are more than 200 Yahoo! and third-party sites that feed into Yahoo! Updates. They include Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp and Yahoo!

Will Buzz do a Twitter eventually? The number of Twitter users has risen 75 million, but the growth rate of new users is slowing and many Twitterers are inactive, according to a new study by RJMetric Inc, which develops online metric analysis software.