Recently, Google has launched “Buzz,” it’s new social networking platform. The response has been varied, but here are two articles I think capture why Buzz in my opinion will be a long term success.
- Google Buzz has completely changed the game: here’s how
- How Google went into “code red” and saved Google Buzz
I am writing here about Buzz because I think it’s a very interesting case study of how an organization leveraged an existing install base (in the millions, in the case of Gmail) to launch a “crowd.” I do not (yet) characterize Buzz as a “swarm” because it does not have a visionary purpose beyond being a platform to share information on. But it is definitely “swarmish” in many ways and we can learn a lot from this.
Why did Buzz succeed where many other social initiatives by Google fail? The first article has many clues to this, so I’ll summarize some of them succinctly:
- Plausible promise. The goal of sharing information is something that many people are interested in.
- Guiding values. This is where the ruckus has been – over certain privacy issues – but those were rapidly addressed by Google (see the second article above)
- Teachable behaviors. Using Buzz is incredibly easy, and since it’s wired directly into Gmail, you don’t have to check yet another site. This means people can use it as they have used many other Google tools (like Chat and Email etc).
- Open membership. With a flip of a switch Google enabled it for tens of millions of users – so they didn’t have to worry about persuading early adopters etc. Can you leverage your installed base in this way?
Buzz is worth watching and then flipping around for your own organization. What things do you do, which have a large installed base, that you could make more swarmish in some way? This is a difficult mental challenge but I think Buzz demonstrates it’s worth some reflection on.
UPDATE: I am taking the enormous step of exploring what it would mean to drop Twitter entirely and switch to Buzz. One less site to manage!
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