Can Google Buzz Really Go Up Against Facebook?
February 11, 2010 by Pablo Palatnik
The new buzz out there is GOOGLE BUZZ. With the explosive growth and dominance of Facebook, Google wants to get its hands on the social aspect of the web. It dominates search, trying the smart phone biz, and almost NEEDS, if you want to make an argument, to also be a big part of the social spectrum online to keep its dominance online.
The current issue with Buzz that can make it a failure is it doesn’t not integrate with Facebook. While it does have some integration with Twitter (18 mil users), you can tweet from Twitter and it’ll appear in Buzz, but you cant tweet from Buzz to appear in Twitter meaning you still have to use the Twitter portal. NOW, if and it doesn’t YET integrate with Facebook (400 mil users), that is a HUGE problem in having people sign up to yet ANOTHER portal.
As reported in Mashable, Facebook is currently working on a project to launch an email service to go against Googles G-mail. IF, and the question may really be WHEN at this point, Facebook launches an email platform, which currently its called TITAN (in the works,) it can really go up against and beat Google overnight with 400 Facebook users. NOW, will people then change to use Facebook email and leave GMAIL behind? Doubtful. At least at first.
Axon from Mashable says, “I can picture one other success scenario, though: a service that aggregates other services’ features and content, and then offers up its own set of unique perks (like Buzz’s noise-control algorithms) that make the social web experience better. People would feel comfortable switching for the extra perks, because they wouldn’t have to leave their existing connections behind.
The outlook could change if Buzz integrates with Facebook the way it does with Twitter. Unless that happens, though, you’re better off keeping your bets on Facebook in the coming year or two — at least if your standard of success is something greater than niche appeal.”
