What's all the Buzz about?

A new social networking program was launched this week by Google called Buzz. this new platform takes social media to a whole new dimension, encompassing all the features of other social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. If Google's new Buzz is successful with users, it could be the next big move since Facebook.

Ryan Baur from pcworld.com believes that Google has surpassed Facebook's ability to connect with others over the internet, with features like Picasa, YouTube, The calendar app and Gmail. "Google has been doing all of this for longer than Facebook-and arguably better-just in a decentralized way", Baur says.

Additional features of Buzz include a personal profile, sharing links and images, status updates and chat. And, of course, how would Buzz surpass Twitter without the famous "@" symbol when referencing people. Another fairly-new app is Google's GPS that can detect where a person is and allows one to "gootag" a specific location for friends to see. All of this can be accessed from Google's home page.

Buzz allows the user to choose his own privacy settings-one that can make some features private while keeping others public. In order to be a "Buzzer", you must have a Gmail account, but critics of Buzz say that it won't be too long until that changes.

However, Buzz is not without fault; it may be user-controlled, but many feel it is not so user-friendly. Harry McCracken from pcworld.com says much feedback has been negative concerning its privacy settings. "To its credit, Google has responded swiftly to complaints: It's already tweaked Buzz to make it more obvious what information their service is making public, and to help you crank up the privacy settings", McCracken says. In addition, many users find Buzz confusing. Synthesizing multiple social networking channels into one site cannot be an easy task; it's bound to be flawed.

If Google can world out its kinks and get a positive response from its users, this might be the next big thing in the social media world. So, the question for now is: To Buzz or not to Buzz? Time will tell.