ordered CHAOS - Google Buzz’s Location

February 10, 2010

thegongshow:

Many people seem underwhelmed by the arrival of Google Buzz. I think SAI’s headline sums up the overall sentiment of the blogosphere nicely: “It’s Late, Boring, and Lame.”

However, I think this kneejerk reaction, especially since it comes from many bloggers that can’t even log into the service yet, underestimates one VERY important feature of Google Buzz. It’s the old Brick-and-Mortar business adage: “Location, Location, Location.” See related pic:

Google Buzz is baked directly in Gmail. I suspect many GChat users don’t know this, but GChat was originally a completely independent product from GMail. GChat was a stand-alone client, just like AIM or Y!Messenger. It also received a somewhat underwhelming welcome from the market, but once it was baked directly into GMail, and logged you in as soon as you opened your email, it became a killer feature. The only difference between the original incarnation of GChat and the GChat of today is the location of interaction, being baked directly in GMail matters.

So, while I’d love to write-off Google Buzz as DOA like most bloggers, I’ll be curious to see how being baked into the Gmail interface will affect my own adoption of the product, along with the rest of Gmail users.

I can’t agree more. IM/IRC had been around for decades, but the day Google Chat automatically appeared within Gmail, chat instantly became accessible to my mom, mother-in-law, grandmother, etc. Every single one of them uses IM now, and they had never heard of it the day before.

In fact, I credit 100% of Twitter’s success to Google integrating Gmail + Chat. Ever since my Mom was able to read my Away messages, I had to start posting my inappropriate status messages somewhere else :)