Android and iPhone feel the Google Buzz, that is. A newly announced social networking product, Google Buzz is all about connecting you to your world – you can interact, and share web links, photos, videos, location and more. Buzz is built into Gmail and integrates automatically with your contacts.

So is Google Buzz the new Twitter? Yes and no. You can write a buzz to let people know what you’re doing, straight from your mobile phone – only without character limitations and in a way which promises to “go beyond status messages”. When you add a link, the media is displayed within your post rather than from the site they originally came from.

Speaking of Twitter, Google Buzz lets you pull content from elsewhere including Twitter, Flickr and Google Reader so friends can instantly see what you’re up to.

You can also focus on location including geo-tagging your photos and accessing other people’s thoughts on particular places. You get to control who sees your information too, by making it private or public, and when people respond to you the messages go straight to your inbox “so it’s easy to keep the conversation going”. You can reply directly to messages and even include @s within your reply (now what does that remind you of?) to alert certain friends to your post.

Every now and then, you’ll receive a recommendation to posts you’ll probably like, so you can include more people within your buzz circle.

You can buzz in many ways. There is the Buzz.google.com web app which can be downloaded onto your iPhone or Android smartphone. The Buzz web app has two views, one for “following” and one for “nearby” so you can view what your followers are buzzing about or buzz for a particular place and see buzz from everyone.

Another way to buzz is using the Buzz shortcut available on the Google home page. Simply tap on the icon in the top right to activate the “posting box”. Buzz is also available as a layer in Google Maps for mobile phones so you view buzz near you or anywhere on the map. You can publicly buzz from a place, posting photos too.

For those times you simply can’t be bothered to type your buzz, Google has a solution for you: the Voice Shortcut. Go into the quick search widget on Android handsets and in Google Mobile App on the iPhone, say the words “post buzz” and then speak what it is you want to post.

But what if you don’t have an Android phone or iPhone? Well, panic not. Users of Windows Mobile and Symbian handsets can enjoy the Buzz element on Google Maps for mobile phones. Although only those with an Android 2.0+ phone or an iPhone can currently buzz on their phones using Buzz.google.com, the developers are working on introducing this feature to more phones in the future.

Are you buzzing with excitement about Google Buzz? It should be introduced now so keep your eye on your Gmail inbox.

For more details on Buzz, watch the video below or head to the Buzz website.

Tags: Google Buzz

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 10:19 am and is filed under Mobile Phone Accessories, Mobile Phone Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.