Google enters online engagement fray 

Google’s new social networking service Buzz faces uphill battle with Facebook and Twitter 

Google Buzz launches alongside warnings from industry analysts that while a bold move it will struggle to catch up with more established websites such as Facebook and the increasingly ubiquitous Twitter. 

Google Buzz allows users o share personal updates, photos and videos. Anyone signed up to the company’s email service Gmail will automatically be able to use the service, meaning the network already contains hundreds of millions of people. 

However analysts said that while a bold attempt to delve into the world of social networking it will be playing catch up with the likes of Facebook. Google believes its Buzz will cut through ‘too much information’ currently on social media networking sites by using Google’s  search technology and algorithms so shoe people updates that are most appropriate to them. 

Google Buzz is its latest attempt to to gain a foothold in social networking after failures such as Orkut and Twitter-like service Jaiku. Buzz allows users to automatically follow the people they regularly e-mail and chat with. Users can post links to other websites and post YouTube videos and photos and the like. If users choose to make this information public they will appear of Google’s search engine making posts easier to find. 

Google has launched a mobile application for Buzz using geo-location technology enabling the device to know where a user is and updates to show them updates of people who are nearby. 

Facebook has just celebrated its sixth birthday by announcing it has 400million users – Google’s Gmail has around 176.5million users according to market research company comScore