Google Buzzoff (Entry 6)

That was Google's video introducing their (then) latest combatant to the social networking wars, Google Buzz. This was Google's answer to Facebook, and was slated to take over and revolutionize the social networking scene, as most Google apps and tools so often do in their respective fields. February 2010 was to be the beginning of the end of every other social network. Facebook was to be finally reduced to a social network pariah, or as it's commonly known in the industry, Freindster.

Notice that I used a lot of the past tense in that paragraph. For obvious reasons.

Buzz ran into a brick wall of assorted issues as soon as it started up. The main legal debacle was how people were angry over the privacy issues and that resulted in a lot of lawsuits. Apparently, most people can only stand at the most one social network site that infringes on their privacy without their knowledge, and Facebook was doing that pretty well already. Also, there was the sad fact that people were so into Facebook (or MySpace, if you were a crappy band) that they never knew that Buzz existed in the first place.

That was such wasted potential, though. It wouldn't seem that way now, what with Google+ and all, but I'll get to that in a minute. The thing that Buzz was going for was that it wasn't a dedicated, separate social networking site per se, but it was more of an app that was seamlessly integrated into the rest of the Google universe. Kind of like learning to whistle loudly with your fingers, as opposed to bringing a giant police whistle around with you in your pocket everywhere you go. It would eventually feel like second nature to the masses of Googlites (or Googlers... whatever), and turn Google into more than just a social networking website. It would be a complete online interface, through which ALL our inline interactions would take place.

Sadly, because of all the hiccups that Google walked into and/or didn't foresee, this didn't happen. Buzz would continue to lie in our pile of cool but unfortunately flawed and eventually disused stuff, along with the MD player, the Sega Dreamcast and the Zune (I can never say the word 'Zune' without at least laughing out loud in my head). And now, with this announcement by Google four days ago, it turns out that Google is finally pulling the plug on Buzz. I like it when the latest news coincides with my assignments.

Well, at least the death of Buzz wasn't in vain. For those of you who (like me) never bothered with Buzz until now, and are seeing the intro view for the first time, you would notice how similar Buzz is to Google+. Google managed to use basis of Buzz and the lessons they learned from it to create Google+, and with 40 million users in Google+ and rising, it looks like they learned quick and learned well. However, there's still the thing about interest in Google+ waning, and that Google+ only served to shake Facebook up enough that they improved themselves.

So, do you think that Buzz would've survived if they had not run into all those legal issues, or was it destined to flop anyway?


Let me know in the comments section down below!