Google Buzz Won't Weaken Facebook, by Douglas MacMillan, Business Week (Feb 10)
Google Buzz - Google's new social network is to be called Buzz , and it will have features of Facebook and Twitter - as well as the GMail base. See the video [1:56]
Course it is all about a place to put advertising, something which Google excels at.
Of interest:
"Indeed, Gmail has gained ground on rivals in Web e-mail. It had 176 million users in December, according to ComScore (SCOR). That left it behind Microsoft's Hotmail, which had 369 million, and Yahoo! Mail, with 304 million. Still, Google grew 44% over the same month in 2008—more than triple the average rate of growth for the category, according to ComScore."
Microsoft and Yahoo have social sharing. Hotmail users can bring in updates from Facebook - and there is the whole community thing at Windows Live. Yahoo has Yahoo Updates tool.
Google might have an edge through a recommender system.
"Google pledges to add something unique to social. One original feature of Google Buzz is what it calls the "Recommended Buzz," which uses a computer algorithm to surface posts and multimedia that friends-of-friends found interesting. With the constant barrage of musings offered up by social media users, there "has become a relevancy and ranking problem," said Google Vice-President of Engineering Vic Gundotra during a briefing for journalists. With its background in search, that's the kind of problem Google is good at solving."
Full description and of Google Buzz and what it will mean to Google and users in Rafe and Josh debate Google's Buzz, Webware. Has a first look video showing the features and integration with other Google pieces.
Yahoo response shows in Google Buzz? MSFT, Yahoo Say ‘Been There, Done That’, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land
Yahoo blew its own horn about its social network endeavour, Yahoo Updates.
"It’s been almost a year and a half since we first launched Yahoo! Updates – a social feature that lets people share their status, content and online activities and stay connected to what their friends and family are doing on Yahoo! and across the Web – and we wanted to share the latest on what’s happening with Updates:"
Posted by Gwen at February 10, 2010 04:55 PM