Tweet, Facebook and now Buzz

Do you buzz? If you tweet, facebook, or even blog, you may want to buzz too. Google took on social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook on their own turf by launching Google Buzz.

If you have a gmail account, you couldn’t have missed it, the first time you have to click through an interstitial buzz setup page on the way to your gmail inbox, and once in, the colorful buzz icon is on the left nestled in among your folders.

The initial launch caused some privacy alarms, and google backed off from automatically linking your other google activity, such as Picasa to Buzz.

It seems to be catching on. I already got two buzzes from one of my gmail chat mates and I noticed that Joel Comm is publicizing his Buzz profile. And Mashable, the venerable social media blog, already has a new Buzz icon next to it’s Twitter and Facebook icons.

I went ahead and created a basic profile so I can join the party but deliberately left many things inactive or blank, I’ll watch how the privacy debate unfurls first.