See, 2F is a blog and as such we are mandated by the powers that be to fulfill certain obligations, no matter how unenthusiastic we are about it. One of those is to at least mention things like a brand new social network launched by one of the biggest internet juggernauts around. So to ensure we aren’t visited by any grade 19 bureaucrats here it is, our required Google Buzz post.

First, if you are unaware of what Google Buzz is, it is a fairly strait forward social networking platform with a great deal of similarities to that of FriendFeed. The service allows you to leverage your Gmail contacts list to build the foundation of your social network contacts and start sharing rapidly. It is similar to Twitter in that it allows for the posting of short messages but differing as it allows for easy conversation tracking and actual dialogue. It also enables direct embedding of pictures and videos and allows for the automatic import and aggregation of lots of other internet services.

I started using FriendFeed about two years ago. I watched it grow from basic rudimentary functionality to a fully featured social network. With that in mind I can say that Buzz reminds me a lot of that first few months of FriendFeed with one major exception. One had the name of former Google employees associated with it and the other had the actual Google name on it. This difference is largely one of perception, and is a discussion for another day.

So without further incoherent rambling on my part. Here are my incoherent opinions on Google Buzz as it is… in bullet time.

The Good

• It was crazy easy to get started. It loaded up gave me a list of contacts to put on my list and let me check/uncheck whoever I wanted to include or exclude. I guess this feature has been changed in the last couple days in the amidst a barrage of privacy concerns.
• If you are already a pro with Gmail, you’ve got a leg-up on Buzz.  The layout is similar, it exists right there in Gmail, and if you have hotkeys enabled in Gmail, they also work in Buzz.  Great for speedsters who are attached to the J/K keys.
• I rather enjoy the service forwarding conversations I am actively engaged in to my Gmail Inbox where I can easily continue to interact with it.
• Google Reader integration allows for super easy sharing of interesting articles while automatically importing thumbnail images. One unique feature of the Reader integration is the ability to expand the shared content in Buzz to show the entire article if you are interested in reading it without clicking through.
• As a communications platform it blows garbage like Twitter out of the water. Marketers and celebrities may not enjoy its differentiation as it doesn’t really cater to the one-to-many one way blast style communication that they enjoy in Twitter. For the rest of us though, this opens up the possibility of actually building real relationships with people.

The Bad

• People have complained about the Reader integration auto-adding contacts to their Google Reader. I think this will probably be resolved when lists get properly implemented. This is kind of one of those areas where you are left wondering why it wasn’t put in for launch but whatev’.  I think people need to prune their subscriptions down to people they actually want to see content from.
• The threads are probably the biggest disapointment in Buzz and stand the chance for the most signifigant improvement. What I had really hoped to see from google was Buzz to act as more of a public Google Wave framework. All the threads should really just be Waves allowing replies to specific comments and embedding of content into the comment streams themselves.  This would have been groundbreaking in this style of platform.
• Browsing the Buzz. For some reason, and I seriously don’t know what it is,  Google Buzz is a complete pain in the ass to browse. I think the main two complications that make it uncomfortable are the uncollapsed comment streams and the bouncing it likes to do when threads are updated. I am guessing this will be addressed eventually.
• Chrome compatibility, I lacks it. Which is a real “WTF?” moment.

PRO TIP: If there is anything I have learned over the last two years of using social media platforms it is definitely this: Don’t waste your time following the Social Media Elites. You know who they are. All they talk about is all the shit you don’t care about. Just go out there and find people with similar interests and find your own community. Your enjoyment level will be exponentially higher without having to rummage through the bullet hell of those guys’ streams.

There you go, I have now completed my Community Service as ordered by the District Court and you probably have just reread everything you already knew about Buzz. But if you are still reading, which I’s probably less than 1% of you, a final thought. Google Buzz is solid, real solid. For a product that has been out for less than a week it already competes well and I have contacts with people that I was completely unable to convince to use other services.

Follow Brooks and Geoff on Google Buzz