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Google Buzz and Business?
Google announced a new social product that will integrate with Gmail, Picasa, Google Reader, Twitter, and a few others. Will Google Buzz, a new social networking-esque product, have relevance in the business world? Or will the barriers to entry be too high?
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6 Answers
A key factor affecting how this all plays out will be the level of integration possible between Google Buzz and Google Docs, Google Voice and other Google services already serving (and gaining) business users. To the extent that Google can deliver synergy among these offerings (perhaps via or including Google Chrome), Google could likely position Buzz (or maybe "Buzz for Biz?") as offering features as yet unmatched by Facebook (or other social networks). ("Social CRM" pioneer and Focus Expert Clara Shih has some interesting additional observations about Google Buzz; read her Focus Brief at http://www.focus.com/briefs/marketing/social-showdown-facebook-and-google-go-... -- and don't forget to comment!)
Good question, Caty. Buzz has potential for relevance in business, but it will take some time and solid execution, especially on privacy and usability issues. Also keep in mind there are only 176M Gmail users. Facebook has 400M is and is also growing faster. I just posted about this on the Focus blog - http://www.focus.com/briefs/marketing/social-showdown-facebook-and-google-go-...
Certainly, I think there is relevance for Google Buzz in Business.
It can serve the same market currently addressed by yammer and present.ly in enterprise microblogging while simplifying deployment when it gets added to Google Apps.
If anything, the barriers to entry seem to have been lowered substantially by integrating it with email. The interface is intuitive and there is immediately a critical mass of users to interact with as opposed to Google Wave.
Finally, taking a look at http://code.google.com/apis/buzz/ , this is clearly a platform based on open standards and I expect an ecosystem of useful utilities built on top of it to flourish.
Short-term the value is almost entirely personal, but as a platform there are certainly opportunities for business applications and utilities to be built on top of Buzz. I've been using it for a while and am pretty intrigued by the possibilities.
I think Google will march this product straight into the heart of the enterprise over the next year or two. Their very well thought out strategy of penetrating the corporate environment started to become apparent with the launch of Google apps going after the MS Office suite, Gmail going after Outlook (and all other still-breathing email apps), Chrome browser going after IE, Chrome going after Windows and now Google Apps shaping up as the uber-app, bringing together email communications with social networking and other related apps that we, the users, have open our heart and minds to. Google realizes that SN is a grass roots phenomenon that is rapidly penetrating the enterprise, whether IT organizations like it or not (much like the first WLANs, early "crack-berries", and now the iphones).
Brilliantly executed strategy by a brilliant company which may end up introducing a viable third political party or launching a manned spacecraft to mars in the not-too-distant future ;-)
Any folks in the Focus community actively using Buzz yet for your businesses?
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