Hands on with Google Buzz - It's a Stream in Your Inbox

Its currently being rolled out to the public slowly you can sign up at buzz.google.com but weve had access to Buzz since shortly after it launched, and Ive had a chance to play around with it.

Buzz integrates directly with your Gmail inbox, so updates and comments appear along side your e-mails. It bears a strong resemblance to other sharing platforms like FriendFeed or Twitter and Facebooks News Feed imagine all of those magically inserted into your Gmail inbox and you get the picture.

It has all the makings of a powerful, real-time social platform thats ready to compete with, or compliment, those established players.

But for now, Buzz is a bit of a mystery. Only a handful of people are actually using it, so the sharing features dont really feel that social. Its as if youre broadcasting into an empty void. In that regard, my first day with Buzz reminds me of my first few days with Google Wave, or my first few days with FriendFeed. That feeling of being in a big empty room will change once Buzz opens up and more of my friends join, just as it did for those other services.

Theres another more serious limitation: What happens in Buzz stays in Buzz. You cant use it to post to your favorite social networks. You can add feeds from Twitter, Flickr, Google Reader and any other social site (except for Facebook, notably), and all that stuff gets aggregated into a single feed on Buzz where your friends can leave comments. But when you post a status update or share any sort of link or media on Buzz, you dont have the option to CC Twitter or FriendFeed.

Google noted during Tuesdays launch event that it does plan on adding the ability to post out to Twitter and other services soon. And, since all public posts in Buzz are available as an XML feed, you could hack together a way to post to Twitter if you know what youre doing. But for now, for most every user, Google Buzz remains a one-way street.

Once those two things change the volume problem and the cross-posting problem Buzz will be a serious player on the social web. Right now, its worth playing with and getting used to, because once it gains momentum, its going to become part of our daily lives. Its that easy to use, and that powerful.

Heres how it works