The new social service is having a rough start despite its popularity

Feb 13, 2010 09:44 GMT  ·  By

People are definitely buzzing about Google Buzz though it's probably not what Google had in mind when it introduced its latest social product. Even as the service gets more and more users, driven by curiosity and likely by the fact that it shows up in their Gmail accounts, its flaws are becoming increasingly apparent and Google is having trouble keeping up. One thing's for sure, people can't stop talking about it.

The first thing that got everyone's hearts aflutter yesterday was the news that Google would rip Buzz from Gmail and make it a standalone product. At least, that's what everyone thought at first but it turns out what Google meant to say is that it may offer a way for people to access Buzz on their computers without using Gmail but that's it. Buzz for Gmail is here to stay and despite the rising privacy concerns, the strategy is paying off with Google already counting a few million Buzz users.

But if Buzz continues to gain in popularity and use, it's going to need a dedicated place for the 'buzzes,' rather than just being a sub-section on Google Profiles. Speaking of Google Profiles, the product would probably benefit if it had more of a 'social network' feel to it and things were a bit more connected and better knit together.

In the meantime tough, there are bigger concerns. The second thing that got people talking about Buzz yesterday was a justifiably strong-worded blog post, which pointed out some rather troubling concerns.

"I use my private Gmail account to email my boyfriend and my mother. There’s a BIG drop-off between them and my other ‘most frequent’ contacts. You know who my third most frequent contact is? My abusive ex-husband. Which is why it’s SO EXCITING, Google, that you AUTOMATICALLY allowed all my most frequent contacts access to my Reader, including all the comments I’ve made on Reader items," the blogger explains.

Google says that the above blog post helped it discover one bug and one product issue and it's now fixing both. The first problem is that even though you block someone in Buzz, they still appear as following you in Reader. Google says that this is a bug and it's working on it. The second issue is somewhat related, there is no possibility to block someone in Google Reader so if you opt-out of Buzz, there's no way to block anyone. This too should be fixed within a few days, Google says. Clearly, there are problems, though, like before, the company is moving fast to address them, which might prove crucial for the product's first days. If it can manage to keep on top of things, Google my have a winning product, despite the rough start.