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Google co-founder Sergey Brin unveils Google "buzz" - Source: Reuters
Google Inc is tapping its huge network of Gmail users and web
surfers to create a Buzz that it hopes will help it catch up with
online social networking leaders Facebook and Twitter.
The world's No 1 search engine launched Google Buzz, which allows
users to quickly share messages, web links and photos with friends
and colleagues directly within Gmail, the company's popular email
product.
Also, a new arsenal of products make the new social networking
features compatible with mobile devices such as smartphones based
on Google's Android operating system.
Google's new technology mimics some of the key features of popular
social networking services like Twitter and Facebook, which are
increasingly challenging Google for Web surfers' online time.
By integrating Buzz directly into Gmail, Google hopes to jumpstart
its social networking push by leveraging the large pool of Gmail
users.
"There's always been a giant social network underneath Gmail," said
Google Product Manager Todd Jackson at a press event at Google's
Mountain View, California headquarters.
Gmail is the third most popular web-based email in the world, with
176.5 million unique visitors in December, according to
comScore.
Microsoft Corp's Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo Inc's Mail were
No 1 and No 2, with 369.2 million and 303.7 million unique
visitors, respectively.
Google will roll out Buzz to Gmail users over the next few days, it
said.
Status messages that users publish on Buzz and flag as viewable to
everyone will be automatically indexed by Google's search engine
and be available within Google's recently launched real-time search
results.
Google said users can also keep messages private by sharing only
with customized groups of friends and colleagues.
Executives said users can easily share content from various Google
online properties like photo-sharing service Picasa and video site
YouTube.
Content from certain third-party services such as Twitter can also
be shared, although users can only view Twitter messages - or
Tweets - within Buzz and cannot publish new messages to Twitter's
service.
Executives said that Buzz is not currently able to display messages
that originated on Facebook, the world's No 1 social network with
400 million active users.
"The fact that Gmail did not connect and allow broadcasts out to
Twitter and Facebook could be a real challenge to them," said
Forrester Research social media analyst Augie Ray.
But he noted that Google's experience serving web surfers'
relevant search results could be a strength for the company in the
social media segment as users are increasingly inundated with
status messages.
Google has tried to ride the social networking wave before,
launching the Orkut social network in 2004.
But while Orkut is big in certain overseas markets like Brazil,
it has failed to attract as many users as social giants like
Facebook and MySpace in the United States.
In building a social network on top of an email product, Google is
following in the footsteps of Yahoo, which has taken a similar
approach in efforts to keep up with Facebook but has seen
lackluster results according to analysts.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he was not deterred by other
companies' experiences in melding email and social
networking.
"I wouldn't discount something because it's similar in the one
sense ... to something else in the past that may not be that
successful," Brin said on the sideline of the event following the
main presentations.
Google appears to be putting a heavy emphasis on mobile and
location-based capabilities, weaving Buzz technology into the
mobile versions of its flagship website and its online maps
products.
The company also announced a special mobile application for Buzz
that will run on smartphones based on Google's Android software,
Windows Mobile and the Symbian operating system.
Google shares rose $US2.97 to close at $US536.44 on Nasdaq.
