New Media on Ulitzer

Reportedly unable to buy Twitter last summer, Google got Twitter-ized Tuesday.

It has integrated a self-affirming, "I tweet therefore I am," so-called babble-style capability smacking a lot of Facebook and Twitter into Gmail so users can share media and status updates with a connected circle of their friends - and the web, if they choose, where it will be indexed and searchable.

And Google said an enterprise version is not far behind. Google has been using it internally and claims it's changed their communications. Google Wave is also on the wish list.

The widgetry is called Google Buzz and there's also a location-based Buzz application for iPhone and Android phones integrated with Google Maps and local chatter that libel lawyers will doubtless have a field day with. (Imagine users claiming that carbonized onion in their soup down at the local greasy spoon was a roach.)

Anyway, Buzz is advertised as a cure for the distracting torrent of irrelevancy out there, the "signal in the social networking noise," as Googlre put it. Instead it promises to have the opposite result.

It'll automatically stream updates from people a Gmail user e-mails and chats with the most and pushes at least some of the updates including web links, videos from YouTube and photos from Picasa into the user's Gmail inbox where it can turn into real-time banter.

Besides the so-called auto-following and public and private sharing options, Buzz includes the @reply feature of Twitter and "Recommended Buzz," an attempt to deliver subject matter the user may be interested in. Buzz can integrate with Twitter and Flickr but not Facebook - at least not yet.

Gmail is used by a reported 176 million people; Facebook by a reported 400 million (and their content can't be indexed by Google). The numbers suggest Google has an uphill climb.

Buzz evidently borrowed its name from Yahoo, which uses it on its news site. Yahoo also added a Twitter variant to Yahoo Mail last year.

Meanwhile, Facebook is supposedly conjuring up an e-mail service presumably designed by the guy who wrote Gmail since he works there now.