Will Google Buzz Be The Next To Go?

Personally I could care less. I tried Wave, found it way too difficult to understand, and gave up on it just like that. I tried it a couple of times after that, but I just never saw the point. People would explain to me all of the great ways that *others* were using it for collaboration, and I could grasp that theoretically but then none of those things really applied to me.

Google Buzz on the other hand is a *huge* part of my online life today. In fact Id say its my primary social network. I get Buzz. I really get Buzz. Its the best interactive social platform I think Ive ever used. Its so much better than Facebook. But now I worry that buzz is next on the chopping block.

Buzz has not innovated as fast as I would have liked it to. There are stupid little things that still feel broken to me after months of use " cosmetic sorts of things. Like why do my Flickr photos show a headline for my most recently uploaded photo, for instance, but then show thumbnails that dont go with that headline?

Why is it still so hard for me to find anything with the search functionality? And why does Google seem to index Twitter posts in their main search engine but not Buzz posts? Why doesnt it do a better job at suggesting people I should follow? Why cant I easily filter it by certain content (show me only flickr posts from my contacts, for example, or only flickr posts from my contacts with 5 likes or more). Some of the sort of stuff that FriendFeed already built before they were abandoned by Facebook.

Then there has been some of the negative PR about Buzz. The initial privacy backlash when some contact information was made public. The confusion that tying it to gmail has created for some users.

In some ways maybe Buzz is a chicken or an egg problem. Its hard to pull people away from Facebook and Twitter when all of their friends are, well, already on Facebook and Twitter.

Where are the Google cheerleaders for Google Buzz? I mean the Google employees in leadership that were out pumping us all up when it launched. It would be nice to hear some voices from Google tell us that Google is committed to Buzz for the long haul that its here to stay and that if anything it will be integrated into future plans for Googles social plans.

Vic Gundotra apparently has been put in charge of all things social at Google TechCrunch tells us today, a General in their war with Facebook. But best I can tell Gundotra doesnt even have a Buzz account. Will Gundotra or one of his Colonels be penning a new blog post a month from now about how Google is also abandoning Buzz because, Buzz has not seen the user adoption we would have liked?

Is it time to move on to the next thing? And what is the next thing anyways? Back to Twitter? Is it finally time to try to embrace the spammy beast that is Facebook?

Google needs their Mark Twain to step up and tell us that the rumors of Buzzs demise are greatly exaggerated. If they are going to publicly execute Wave for the crime of poor user adoption, then they should reassure us that Buzz is not next. Unless Buzz really is next in which case their silence will be telling.

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