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Comment by jasonwilk | Hacker News Reader

i wish there was a way to send calacanis a virtual slap in the face for this one. So wrong.

To answer his questions:

1. Have you used Google Buzz? Yes, I think I'm perceived as a target user. Tried it, quit it. 2. How is Google Buzz better than Facebook? It's not. 3. What advantages does Google Buzz have over Facebook? That it lives in Gmail, but that's still not compelling. 4. What advantages does Facebook have over Google? My friends/social graph algorithms/news feed 5. Did you see this coming? Sure, why wouldn't Google try this. They have 20,000 employees. This maybe took 5 weeks and 3 dev guys to hack up. 6. What do you attribute Google’s recent string of AMAZING products including: Chrome, Android, Nexus One and Buzz? Nexus One has a nice screen resolution. That's about the only good thing.

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I dunno, I feel like you're being a bit overly critical here. In my mind, Buzz isn't competing with Facebook, it's competing with Twitter. Buzz is Twitter for the masses. And personally, I know that due to Gmail integration, I'm going to be using it - unlike Twitter or Facebook.

People seem to want Buzz to fail for some reason. I feel like people saw Wave, decided "Oh, Google failed, they can't possibly make a new product right", and are now trying to pin that on Buzz too.

Anyway, I'm using it, as are a bunch of my friends. People are already using it in my social friend graph, and enthusiastically, too - which is much more than could be said for Wave. I'm not saying it's going to be a huge success, but I think it's silly to just brush it off as crap so quickly.

> I know that due to Gmail integration, I'm going to be using it - unlike Twitter or Facebook.

Funny - due to gmail integration, I'll never use it.

It feels to me like an issue of kool-aid. If you accept the assertion that everyone uses gmail, and that everyone loves the gmail interface, and that people keep gmail open all day (or at least check it fairly often), then Google Buzz seems like a great idea - a social network tied into all the services you use every day.

It breaks down when you start breaking those assertions. If you're not in Gmail every day (e.g. if you use an IMAP client), or if you don't like the interface (but you have to use it, e.g. Google Apps), or if you don't use gmail at all, then Google Buzz becomes a huge hassle to use.

I'd love to love Buzz, because I like awesome things, but it seems to me that the Buzz team just assumes everyone loves Gmail as much as Google does, and that's not going to pan out. They might think Buzz will be a draw to Gmail, but in reality Gmail will be a barrier to Buzz.

This was more in response to Calacanis' blind optimism that it is going to cut Facebook traffic in half.

I love Buzz (and Reader). Wave was oversold and seems just like realtime message boarding. There is an intense amount of hate being generated for Buzz. <anecdotal>It seems a lot of people seem to dislike the intrusion into Gmail, maybe.</anecdotal>

The main advantage Buzz has over Facebook is that it will most likely be scoped to Google Apps for Your Domain.

Well, Chrome has a ridiculously fast, lightweight browsing engine. I'd attribute that to Apple though, so…

behave.... no threats please

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