Google Buzz Takes The Cheese Out of Facebook’s Mouth

GOOGLE’s latest feature, Google Buzz, is a social networking coup d’etat, and looks set to snatch the cheese right out of Facebook’s mouth. Launched on February 9, 2010, Buzz is designed to   integrate with Gmail and provide a platform for Gmail users to share media content, links and make status updates.

Google Buzz

Wait, did I say Status Updates? Now that sounds familiar. With more than 146 million users on the Gmail platform, Google  is a head and a shoulder shorter than social networking czar Facebook, which has more than 400 million users, but there are a number of factors that will make this a classic play out of the David and Goliath effect.

One recurrent criticism of Facebook up to now, is that it doesnt have a sound business strategy. Beyond the status updates, pokes and likes, Facebook doesn’t seem to have a solid real world functionality, and still carries the my-space stigma of being an all play and no work platform.

Google

Google Buzz, on the other end, is a child of the Google platform, which has put itself across from the start as  business and productivity oriented, with such features as Adsense, Analytics, Google Documents, Google Maps, Google Reader, Google Books, Google Sites… the list goes on.

Adsense, and why Buzz makes sense

While we use Facebook intermittently, logging in to respond to messages or make status updates, Google has the advantage of time, as most users spend hours either working in Docs, Calendar, Blogger, Reader or Books. This could explain why there are so many Google Adsense adverts flying on different websites.

The power to create

Mist importantly, Google has managed, throughout its range of products, to give its users the power to create through Google Sites and Blogger. Facebook has so far given its 400 million plus users the right to change their profile pictures, and thats about it.

Google has China, Facebook has not.

The last factor, Google has a presence in one of the largest internet markets, the mighty Chinese social networking empire of 300 million users.  Lets see whether Facebook will respond to Buzz in the same way it shoo-shooed the Twitter bird… or whether this is the last it will see of its market cheese.

Posted by Tawanda Kanhema on 7:24 pm. Filed under BLOGS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry