Google Buzz: What Say You?

Mashable says that Google has “has dropped a nuclear bomb whose fallout will permanently alter the social media landscape” with the launch of Google Buzz last week (February 9, 2010).

If you aren’t already clued in to Google Buzz, it’s an expanded function of Google’s popular Gmail.  Click the Buzz icon and see your friends’ posts on Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other social sites.  But so far, I don’t see how to connect Facebook.  Nor do I see how to add the social network of your choice.  So at this point, it’s limited.

However, because Gmail has so many users (38 million unique users as of 2009, according to Mashable)  Google Buzz debuts as a huge thing, with already more users than Twitter.

The key question for me is this:  how you use Gmail.  I use it primarily as a “personal” address for things not directly related to business and I don’t think I’m alone here.  It’s an accepted best practice to use an email address from your business domain rather than a Gmail address for your business.

So my Gmail address book does not include most of my key business contacts, and since I use social media primarily for business, there’s a disconnect.  In fact, when Buzz launched, it connected me with only about a dozen people  So far, only one of these people is showing up on my Buzz stream.  Not too interesting, eh?  So for me, the net impact of Google Buzz  is not very big.

I know there are many folks using Gmail (especially Gmail for business)  as their primary business email.  Google Buzz will work well for them.   It will also work well for those who do not want to fool with the setup and ramp-up necessary to make Twitter a good experience.   Further, Google will eventually make Buzz more functional and thereby more central to users’ daily lives.

If we’ve learned one thing in the past decade, it’s to never underestimate Google.

What do you think?  What’s Google Buzz doing for you?