For anyone that uses Google’s Gmail account you can now join Google Buzz, Google’s latest social media venture, “being an entire new world within Gmail”. Similar to Twitter, Buzz allows you to share either publicly or privately with your followers.

One of the benefits of Buzz is you can link your account to your Picasa, Twitter and Flickr account showing all your updates in Buzz. There is also the option to set individual posts to public or private or even to specific groups you have set up in Buzz so if you wanted to let a certain customer base know about the latest product release or sale you could easily share this information to all your followers. One of my current favorites is that you can associate pictures with Buzz in Google Maps and conversations will appear on Google Maps, allowing you to see what other people are saying nearby.

Although Buzz has got off to a slightly shaky start as some users were automatically connected to those they emailed frequently on Gmail and then those connections were showed publicly to everyone. The problem with this for some users which include doctors and solicitors is that it publicly showed their patients / clients to their other contacts which could lead to clients and patients to feel exposed. On a personal level one Buzz users abusive ex boyfriend was added so he was then able to see all her current contacts. These security issues have lead to a privacy review and Google have been in talks with Federal and Provincial Privacy Officials in Canada and other countries. Google will need to address these as quickly as they can to satisfy users and keep them hooked.

I am undecided about Google Buzz at the minute but I have been using it a little this week and will continue to use it, I will keep you up dated.

If you are running a company wordpress blog you can add the Google Buzz bookmark button here.