Buzz is a Game Changer

After a day of Google Buzz, you’re probably starting to form your own opinions.

Many have called it a Twitter killer. Others claim that it is making a play on Facebook. Calacanis stated that Facebook’s valuation dropped in half yesterday.

Personally, I absolutely love it. Here’s why…

It is integrated with GMail. I’m in Gmail all day anyway, so having easy access to it is perfect for me. I realize that this isn’t true for many, and for them there will probably be desktop clients that integrate with Buzz. There is already an API. I predict that Seesmic will be first to market with this integration.

Conversations. If you’ve been using Buzz for the past day and don’t immediately see that the one thing that Twitter has sorely missed is conversations, then there is no hope for you. Go back to Eudora. The conversations that I’ve been involved in are fantastic. Buzz has got me in touch with people who I haven’t conversed with in months. It’s also got me talking to people who I have never even met before, friends of friends.

FriendFeed did most of this, but adoption was poor. FriendFeed does most things better actually, that I hope Google will incorporate somehow.

That’s it. It really isn’t anything more than that.

Danger!

There are a few risks to Buzz. First, it exposes your Google profile and Gmail account. This was already out there if you created a pretty URL for your profile.

Mine is http://google.com/profiles/sjangro

If you want one that doesn’t look like your car’s VIN, edit your profile and way down the bottom, you can select the pretty version:

Also, unless you explicitly set up a private Buzz, what you write is entirely public information. They are visible on your profile, and every Buzz has a “permalink” and Google is indexing buzzes.

This is no different from Twitter, but I think that it is much more obvious on Twitter that what you’re saying is visible to the world. Since Buzz is much more intimate, you may fall into a false sense of security that you’re only talking to your friends.

If you’re not on Buzz yet, do check it out. It’s a game changer.