Well according to our online survey, most people don’t think that Google Buzz will be the next craze in social media.  Perhaps it is a bit behind the development curve when it comes to social media. People already have their Facebook account, LinkedIn profile, MySpace and are Twittering away until their hearts are content… so what are they going to gain by using Buzz?  And, most importantly do they want yet another social media tool?

The first step that Google made, was to launch Buzz within an already existing platform – Gmail.  Clever, because if it had been stand alone I don’t think people would have the inclination to use it. For many reasons, but probably most important is it would have been yet another application to open and manage… why bother.

The second advantage was to use the power of Gmail to help users use Buzz.  All those email addresses that have been stored – business associates, contacts, friends, acquaintances, family etc.

The autofollowing feature that was supposed to help Buzz users find other users to follow, has caused a few privacy issues. But now that it has been tweaked to allow users a bit more control of who sees their Gmail mailing list, it will give people more confidence.

Will Google Buzz take off and be a success?  I think this really depends on how much people will continue to use the shortened Twitter-like version of communicating.

Buzz has some advantages to users, but I don’t see any clear differentials that will make it stand out from the pack.