I was glad when I first read about Google Buzz, a few days old social service from Google. This should in opinion replace the need for Facebook as a separate application and the need for Twitter at all. Google integrated Buzz into Gmail, which is a very clever idea. This way they don’t need to ‘steal’ users from other networks like Facebook, they want just to convert all their Gmail users to social app users – and by that eliminating the need for using separate social applications like Facebook. I’m sure that Buzz will grow and will allow to add plugins or new applications to it and become as popular and used as other networks are.
However… (there is always a however)
I use Gmail through my Google Apps account and guess what? Google Apps account are not (yet?) upgraded to include Google Buzz. I have read some answers from their Help page that they should get it in some months. Still, this means that I can’t use it through my personal mail nor my business mail. I could use it in my Gmail mail, but that’s not my primary mail and I don’t really use it.
Another way of using Google Buzz would be through my mobile phone. As I wrote before I have Samsung Galaxy i7500 Android phone that runs Android version 1.5. Guess what? Google Buzz supports only phones with Android version 1.6 with limited features and Android 2.0 or 2.1 with full features. Which means that I can’t use Google Buzz on my mobile, either. So if I enter mobile Buzz address all I get is a list of supported (and partly) supported phones. Mine not on the list, of course.