Heard the buzz?

As you may have heard, there’s a new social media platform in town – and it comes from Google. As a business owner, you may be wondering whether it’s yet another place where you have to keep up a presence – like Facebook, Twitter, and your blog aren’t taking enough of your time!

Our advice? Wait for a little. There’s already been quite a strong backlash in the press (and, ironically enough, on those existing social media platforms), mostly predicated on the way Google introduced its new product. As it’s integrated with Gmail (Google’s email service) and switched on by default, many are complaining that it breaches privacy by scanning your contacts and setting them up as your followers with no input required.

If negative feeling reaches critical mass, we may see the service fade away into the background, at least for a while. Remember all the excitement about Google Wave? That receded, once people had gained an invitation, logged in, and found it… well, a little more visionary than they could cope with, shall we say. How about Lively, Google’s virtual world? I’d forgotten that so thoroughly that I just had to Google it to remember its name, and yet, at the time of launch, it was going to be the next great thing.

So don’t launch your Buzz presence yet – if you’ve even worked out how to yet, which would put you a step ahead of the big boys. If you feel brave, click that ‘Buzz’ link in your GMail, and watch, and wait. Then you’ll understand the interface and be ready to leap in when it starts looking like a viable way to promote your business.