Blue Helm

One day when I was in the third grade, one of my classmates showed me that trick where you hold a pencil and shake it to make it look like it’s rubber. You know the one. At the time, I thought that was the coolest thing any human child had ever done and possibly would ever do. I mean seriously—the pencil was wobbling as if it were RUBBER. Unprecedented. I showered praises on my talented peer and so did most other kids sitting around me. He did the trick for a while, until some other kid sitting near us shouted, “Hey look at me! I can do it too!” We all looked and witnessed his sorry attempt at the pencil trick, paling in comparison to our other friend’s feat. We severely berated him, telling him that he was just trying to copy what was already done to look cool. He was a wannabe.

Today I experienced a remarkable sensation of déjà vu….Google Buzz is that wannabe kid.

Now let’s be clear: I love Google. I love Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps, Google News, Google Wave, Google Earth, Google Everything. But this new attempt to jump on the social media bandwagon is lame at the very least. Why does Google even think its new social network can compete with Twitter or Facebook? It’s too closed up, too walled-in. With Google Buzz, you can only share information with other Gmail users. It also sends every Buzz update to my Gmail Inbox, which infuriates me to no end. And it’s just a ripoff of Microsoft and Yahoo’s previous attempts to integrate social media with email.

I’m not opposed to new, innovative and creative social networks that compete with Facebook and Twitter. Competition is healthy, even in a saturated market. But Google Buzz offers nothing new and only succeeds in annoying me.

Am I missing something? Do you love Google Buzz? Will Google prove me wrong and dominate the social network market? Let me know what you think.