Google Gmail gets Social 173.0

Today Gmail gets the Buzz. The roll out is ongoing.

Social media overtook email by volume of use within the past two years. Similarly, more and more people are asking their friends than searching on Google to learn about things that people ought know better.

Two days ago, five out of the top twenty hottest search topics on Alexa was about, “What time is the Superbowl on?” That’s not a topic most people would search on Google.

Thus, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Gmail would get Social, in some form.

The official Goggle blog introduces Buzz, and I quote:

Five years ago, Gmail was just email. Later we added chat and then video chat, both built right in, so people had choices about how to communicate from a single browser window. Today, communication on the web has evolved beyond email and chat — people are sharing photos with friends and family, commenting on news happening around them, and telling the world what they’re up to in real-time…

Today, we’re launching Google Buzz, a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting and share updates, photos, videos and more. Buzz is built right into Gmail, so there’s nothing to set up — you’re automatically following the people you email and chat with the most.

There is nothing to install so all we need to do in Manila is to wait. It will probably take a day or two for the rollout through the +60 data centers.

Buzz bites Facebook and Twitter. The pundits are already peering at their crystal balls to guess the effect on Twitter and Facebook.

It will be interesting to try the features Google Buzz to see how this will work out.

My take, Buzz Morphs to Everyman Blog. My own take is that Google Buzz may morph more easily into a single point content management system given its starting point in corporate and formal communications than into social networking.

It would have a clear and nice niche between Twitter’s 140-character limit and the more techy requirement of WordPress for broadcast blogging to friends or to the whole world.

Imagine every Juan or Jose blogging with text, photo and video, even the technology-challenged but experience-rich older foggies.

And Google Buzz is on mobile phones too, too!

Google has been a bit timid in announcing Google Buzz after the rather weak entry of the hard-to-understand but well-hyped Google Wave.

Welcome. It would make for an very interesting world when Everyman becomes a citizen-journalist broadcasting for free to the world!

Note: It is strange but this post has many hyphenated word phrases. It could mean that normal English needs to develop more words to describe the new things happening in new technology space. Indeed portmanteaus are normal in this space.