Small Business Owners: THIS Is Why You Should Care About Google Buzz

0 Comment(s) | Posted Feb 10, 2010 by Pat Morrell

Patrick Morrell

For lack of a less egregiously corny introduction, there's been a great deal of buzz surrounding Google's latest innovation, "Google Buzz."  As many of you have likely already heard, Google's innovation team unveiled "Buzz" yesterday, touting it as the next evolution in Google communication tools.  

But why should this matter in the slightest to small business owners?

First, some background:

Operating out of the same platform and profile as GMail, "Buzz" is an inherently social function that will allow users to communicate with real-time status updates, much like they already do on Twitter and Facebook.  The interactive aspect of buzz is very intuitive, allowing users to grow a "friend" network very quickly using the exisiting contact base they alread enjoy in their GMail contacts, and communicating with direct messages, comments, @mentions (like Twitter) and status updates that will automatically sync in their inbox (just like a normal email).

Furthermore, Google Buzz easily integrates a bevy of popular external social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, and Google Reader, allowing users the ability to manage and monitor multiple networks from one portal.

There's also a recommendation function - users spread posts from friends or friends-of-friends (Like a Twitter retweet), and Google can make recommendations for conversation strands and people to follow based on user activity. 

On a certain level - and AOL, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter, have been quick to point this out - Google is taking the best elements of existing social networks and jut housing them in GMail.  Therein lies the genius, the kick for consumer engagment. For Google Buzz to be at all relevant when stacked up against Facebook and Twitter, large-scale consumer buy-in is key.  And how do you achieve large-consumer buy-in: Making engagement as turnkey as possible.  Buzz does that, and for 146M+ monthly GMail users (not a bad jumping off point).

Not only does it operate out of a familiar, popular platform - there are hundreds of millions of businesses and individuals on GMail - but it incorporates equally familiar social networks, thereby simplifying online engagement.  We've explored previously that the trend in social media across the next 12-18 months will be one of consolidation i.e. people finding simpler ways to manage more networks through one portal.  Google Buzz offers incredible opportunity there, and small businesses would be wise to keep apprised of developments there as more and more eyeballs look that way, and more and more activity spawns there.

So, why should you care?  The activity in Google Buzz is also a potential golden ticket for small businesses looking to increase local business and foot-traffic (who isn't???)  

(NOTE: I was going to write this next section myself, but frankly FastCompany's Kit Eaton crushed it earlier today)

"Mobile Buzz uses tons of location-based data from your smartphone's A-GPS circuitry to work out where you are, and then feeds that information to your Buzz friends, should you chose to transmit it. It even combines your information to work out your location in a colloquial language--not merely asking, "Are you at 7 World Trade Center?" but rather, "Are you at work?" Google's algorithm then scours through the mass of all ongoing Buzz and shapes some of the content to what it thinks you'd prefer to see, before delivering to you the "nearby Buzz." Which will include stuff from friends, people Google thinks you may be interested in hearing from and, of course, companies that may try to sell you their wares.

This mode of operation is like pieces of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yelp, and a bagful of augmented reality apps all blended into one Google system. A system that's threaded throughout all of the ways you interact with Google--even its primary search engine."

As Eaton further explains, Google's evolving applications can ask you if you'd like another cheeseburger for lunch (you had one last Tuesday - it remembered), and then recommend three locations nearby (likely those that have, or could, purchase "advertising" space in Google).  Extrapolate further, and Google Buzz could be an engagement tool, but also an external memory and recommendation engine, helping you determine how you make decisions over the course of your day.

What small business wouldn't be interested in harnessing that power?

Full disclosure.  Buzz has issues.  The auto-follow function is somewhat unpredictable, the relevancy matches can be surprising, and the level of activity could leave your inbox overflowing with comments and Buzz-generated recommendations.  However, if history has shown us anything, it's that Google has a certain way of making itself relevant.

Filed under: Emerging Media, Small Business