Since Google Buzz launched a few months ago, it has had some very impressive early adopters. Mashable and TechCrunch have been the first of many larger blogs to jump on board, with many smaller blogs following suit.
But just how has Google ramped up enough media coverage and PR to have such a successful launch? Clearly we can consider Buzz still in its beta stages, as there are many steps this feature can take in a new direction. I’ve got a few thoughts for Google as well, and I would love to see Buzz grow into a Twitter-like clone over the next few months.
Where Buzz may have been thought of as just another site to work with, it actually turned out to be rather successful in its launch. This is in a large part due to the fact that most people are already running Google accounts. Whether you use Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Wave, or anything else Google has to offer. This makes it easy for people to just jump into Buzz and try out some of the new features, without needing to go through and register a new account.
What has made things even easier is the coverage Google’s new trend has gotten. Popular social media blog Mashable has added a Google Buzz widget, very similar to the ReTweet and Facebook Share buttons. It allows readers to, with the click of a button, share any story on Google with all of their Buzz followers. Not only that, but the widget also holds a live count of how many people have shared the link through Buzz.
So Where is Buzz Heading?
There are a few directions Google can go with Buzz at this point, most of them moving forward. I can see Buzz growing into a full-blown social news and media sharing app, very similar to Twitter but with more options. This would also work well as you can tie in your Gmail address book and contacts easily.
I would also expect to see an official API from Google Buzz released within the coming months. Mashable has it set up so that when you share a link on Buzz, it actually sends it through Google Reader and tracks the share count that way. It works for now, but I would love to see an official widget released through Google.
At the end of the day, I would vouch for Buzz. It’s got a very strong future, many popular and highly-branded sites have created profiles on there as well to further the impact. Google’s launched an amazing product so far, and I am very excited to follow it’s growth over the months to come.
