Google has unveiled its own social network known as Buzz. It is integrated with  Gmail – allows users to post status updates, share and read and comment on friends posts. This is pitching Google directly against Facebook, which has nearly 400 million users.  Buzz will try to capitalise on the number of Gmail users, which is around 170 million now. It needs to be seen if they can snatch users from Facebook & Twitter Some features of Buzz The features are directly built into Gmail.

• Users can post private or public status updates – known as a buzz – and share content from other sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Picassa.
• The messages – highlighted with a Buzz symbol – are incorporated directly into the inbox. Private updates are automatically added to a user’s profile page, whilst public updates will also be available to search engines.
• The site also incorporates elements of Twitter, such as the ability to “follow” people that share updates, and features that appear in Facebook such as the ability to “like” content.
• Buzz will also recommend content from people that it thinks you may like to see and incorporate it directly into a users content stream.
• Google mapping service has been set up with this for mobile platforms.
• Google also says public updates will also be added to Google Places, a directory of businesses that include reviews of restaurants and theatres, for example.

This is not the first attempt of Google with social networking site. Orkut did not take off except in Brazil and India.Hopefully they got it right this time. But it will still be hard to beat Facebook with that kind of popularity. The new site design to search and chat only makes Facebook better. Did you know that “Facebook” has become a verb? “Do you facebook” or “do you FB” is a common query at social occasions!