The Google rhetoric is getting a little ridiculous. Yesterday, they announced Google Buzz, a FriendFeed-Facebook-Twitter sort of mash-up built right into gmail. I just read a mini-review of the service by Jason Calacanis. He began with:

BREAKING: Google Buzz is brilliant. Like ground-breaking,
game-changing brilliant.

He then went on to suggest “Facebook has just lost half its value,” that “this could actually derail the Facebook IPO” and even said “If Google adds social gaming to Google Buzz Facebook is 2012′s Pointcast.”

Not in a million years. Here’s the deal, people: Google is not God. They are not a perfect company, and they’ve had plenty of failures. Just like Apple, who proved two weeks ago even they can produce disappointing products (*ahem* the iPad), just because Google slaps their name on something doesn’t mean it’s going to be a winner.

Google Buzz might have potential, but from where I’m sitting I’m not terribly impressed. Several reasons for this.

Facebook is still bigger, and Twitter is still simpler

Easily Facebook’s biggest advantage is its size. There are plenty of complaints about the site, and plenty of complaints about their corporate “stealing of ideas” from Twitter, but with over 400 million active users it pretty well dwarfs Gmail’s 150 million accounts.

Calacanis made the point that Google Buzz is much more secure, privacy-wise, than Facebook, as well. But is that a good thing? It could be argued as a good thing for users, but in my eyes it’s a pretty regressive concept. The future of the Web is open, in my humble opinion, not closed. Google is taking the open nature of all these systems and putting them in a lockbox–your inbox.

As for Twitter, its differentiating factor has always been its simplicity. Twitter is simple. It’s one box, 140 characters, that’s it. It can take a little coaching to really understand the value to be found with the service, but all in all, it’s pretty simple.

Google Buzz strives to be simple, too. It “auto-generates your network,” says Calacanis, a feature that he seems to think is a huge leap over those old ways of actually building your own network. But what if I don’t want them to auto-generate my network? What if not all my friends use gmail? What if Google Buzz’s definition of “what’s interesting” is different than mine? Perhaps its just me but I’m taking all of the buzz around Google Buzz with a hefty grain of salt for now.

Who wants a more cluttered inbox?

I don’t know about you, but speaking for myself and most of the journalists and communications professionals I know, we’ve got ridiculously cluttered inboxes as it is. Google Buzz takes your most recent comments and updates and puts them in your inbox, “to make sure you don’t miss them” says the introductory video on their Web site. That’s the last thing I need, is one more thing taking up space and distracting me from more important e-mails, work, etc.

Are you active on Twitter? Imagine if you got an e-mail every time you’re mentioned. For me that would be 50-60 additional e-mails a day, on average. And Facebook? What if you got an e-mail for every single comment, photo, friend request, or application invite you received. Most people have hundreds, if not thousands, of Facebook friends–the thought of seeing all that nonsense in my inbox is terrifying.

Buzz is built off of the existing Gmail infrastructure. Sure, it’s convenient if you’re a Gmail user, but it’s also one more thing to deal with. Some people, like my sister are just turning it off altogether.

Do we need another social network interface?

Who says we want this? Who says users want this? Plenty of people are already noting the similarities to FriendFeed with Google Buzz. FriendFeed flopped and got bought up by Facebook–what makes Google think they can put it out with a different name and make it work? Sure they’ve got a bigger installed base, but if people are just turning it off then who’s to say it’s actually going to be used?

Personally I like having my networks a little bit separated. I focus most of my social media time on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and think of them as a sort of tiered network system for my connections. Twitter is the catchall–I’m connected to people I know in person, people I only know online, and people I just want to get to know. LinkedIn is for my professional connections, people whom I want to have intelligent, career-related conversations with. Finally Facebook is for people I really know, people I know and like in person or at least know pretty well online.

Google Buzz throws that out the window and says, “okay, you’ve sent these people multiple e-mails, we’ll make you a friend on Google Buzz.” No thanks.

On top of all that, there’s a social network for everything. There’s FourSquare for location, Meetup.com for in real life connections, all the old standbys, plus Ning for individual, issue/company/topic-specific social networks. What is Google Buzz adding to the mix that we don’t already have. How is it going to make my social media interaction online better? I’m not seeing any answers for that question.

For marketing and communications professionals, Buzz seems pretty well worthless.

How does this benefit business? How can Buzz be used by marketing and communications professionals to reach out to new audiences, to interact with new customers, to innovate in customer service? Twitter and Facebook play invaluable roles in marketing and communications today, but Buzz is noticeable lacking in that arena.

Sure, it’ll have Google Adsense, I’m sure, but Adsense is nothing but a faucet of money for Google, coming from junk ads that few people really click on anyway. Although my career is young, I’ve never heard Adsense mentioned as playing a significant role in any marketing or communications campaign.

Nope, from what I see Google Buzz looks to be no fun for us. And if it succeeds in draining some of the momentum from Facebook and Twitter–which I honestly don’t think it will–it’ll be a shame that so much of the innovation in customer service, community outreach, online organizing and online marketing and communications in general will have gone down the drain with those services.

If Google can prove to me why all the things I just mentioned are addressed, or can convince me why the things above don’t matter, then maybe they’ll begin to win me over.

What do you think about Google Buzz? Are you using it already? Have you noticed yourself visiting Facebook and Twitter less often because of the service? Let us know in the comments or tweet at us @shamable.

Alex Priest is a junior at American University in Washington, D.C. studying Public Communications and Marketing, and minoring in Statistics. Originally from Kentucky, Alex has embraced the capital city and has strong interests in public relations, advertising, social media, social justice causes, and politics. Check out his personal blog at alexpriest.com or follow him on Twitter, @alexpriest.