What's all the Buzz about?

Some people hail Google Buzz as the new Messiah of social media.

Here are the results of one of my first forrays into Buzz:



(You have to click on the damn link to actually read the convo. Lame.)

Ultimately, it is a microblogging service. I don't really see it as offering me something that I can't already do on Facebook, Twitter, or my blog.

The big thing it does offer is convenience. It is already there on my most frequently-visited site (which was initially unnerving/annoying). It's centralized. I do wish it was easier to organize and search through information. Maybe listing capabilities, like with Twitter (love that!).

So far, the people posting are my most adventurous of friends, so posts are interesting. It feels less commercial than Facebook (ironically) with a nice, clean interface that focuses on the content.

I do like that is can pull in my activities from so many different sources automatically.

I think it has great hope of scooping up people who have not gotten sucked in to other social media already.

What it may ultimately really do is poke people's curiosity enough to make them explore all of the many other things Google offers to make people's lives easier/better/screen-time consumed.

For example, in an attempt to figure out how to make Google Buzz more useful, I fell upon this nifty Mashable article on how to integrate Facebook and Twitter into my Gmail/Buzz. Still testing it, but so far less than dazzling results. Not really robust or smooth.

Still, I discovered a lot of cool gadgets, services, and streams in Google Labs, Gmail labs, and settings that I had not previously explored, making Google once again my favorite tech/web company.

Meaning I am committed to still keep playing with Buzz.