Google Creates a “Buzz” in Social Networking World

It’s no secret how popular social networking sites have become over the past few years. Testament to this is the meteoric rise in the number of users of Facebook. I mention this because it is the only reason I can think of why Google would want to come up with something similar by creating Buzz – literally.

To Gmail users reading this, you probably already heard of Buzz, or encountered it when you opened your Gmail accounts starting last week. Buzz is Google’s answer to Facebook. It is a social networking tool that allows users to connect with their friends, loved ones and acquaintances by relying on the principle that your email contacts, especially the ones you send messages to the most, are also the ones you would want to keep in touch with on a social basis; and much like Facebook, it works by allowing you to post status messages, upload photos, links and the like to share with this network of people.

If you think about it, Google was actually working on a really good premise by allowing email contacts to interact with each other. After all, that’s how you usually find your friends on Facebook too, aside from the Friend Finder method. One of Facebook’s chief tools for helping you find friends is by importing your contacts list from your primary email accounts.

The problem, however, that cropped up in the first week of its release was that Gmail users who were introduced to Buzz (and let me emphasize here, usually without really wanting to use it, because Buzz is integrated with Gmail and if you want to check your Inbox or send a message off to someone, Buzz is right there, a colorful little tab in your left hand panel, attached, bonded and packaged with Gmail) found out that they were now following email contacts or were being followed by said email contacts automatically!

Definitely an issue of privacy. Why so? This is because Gmail assumes that the people you email automatically pass your privacy screening standards, and doesn’t ask for confirmation of whether you want to follow or be followed by them. A big no-no for people who keep a contact list over email whom they don’t want to interact with socially – like bosses, or clients and the like. It also exposes your contacts to each other, allowing say, a boss to find out that you are also in contact with, say, a rival company.

Now, I can easily say that I don’t have to use Buzz, even as I’m using Gmail because I can just ignore it and let it sit its colorful bubble on my left side panel, but the fact that it exists, and that it does some things automatically that I am not yet aware of or prepared for is an issue for me. Hey, I didn’t sign up for it like I did Facebook and it being integrated in my mail automatically doesn’t fly well with me.

I would rather that Google had advised its users of the introduction of Buzz before actually launching it and providing users with the option to either agree to integrate Buzz into their Gmail accounts or reject it, leave it out of Gmail but give them an option to reintegrate their social networking tool at a later time. The fact that it’s integrated with email can be a big advantage over having separate accounts, but if that’s the case, users should have the freedom to choose to integrate or not, depending on how users actually utilize their social networking pages and the degree of privacy that they require, which, if you think about it is really the issue of utmost importance here.

To Google’s credit, after getting negative feedback over privacy issues in Buzz, the company has already begun to address issues of privacy control and are now working on ways to make Buzz a better companion to its infinitely better email counterpart.