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Google creates buzz with new social networking service
Search engine Google will rival Twitter and Facebook with the launch of an expansive new social networking service called Buzz.
Google Buzz incorporates Facebook-style networking features, such as instant messaging and photo and video sharing, into its popular Gmail email service.
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Buzz is being rolled out to Google's millions of Gmail customers over the next few days, giving it the potential to become one of the largest social networks in the world behind market-leader Facebook, currently boasting 400 million users worldwide.
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Todd Jackson, Google Buzz's product manager said: "Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting.
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"It's built right into Gmail, so you don't have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch."
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Google said its mission is to help users find "relevance in the noise" of digital information on the internet.
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Mr Jackson added: "In today's world of status messages, tweets and update streams, it's increasingly tough to sort through it all, much less engage in meaningful conversations."
Buzz also gets a mobile phone platform for keeping in touch on the move.
Messages and photos posted from a mobile can be geographically tagged on a Google Maps layer to pinpoint where they were sent.
However, despite entering the sphere of rival social networking services, Google insists it will remain "fully open" and allows users to connect to Flickr and Twitter from Buzz in Gmail.
Google is also inviting developers and programmers to help build applications for its open software.
Technology magazine T3's acting editor, Luke Peters, believes Google has the influence to make its late entry into the social networking market successful.
He said: "While Google Buzz seems like a project that should have been launched before the Facebook and Twitter explosion, its dynamic integration with existing social networking services and your existing Google contact list could make it a workable centre-point for information delivery and retrieval. With an email-ring style approach to social networking, it could capture the imagination of the mainstream."
However, Justin Pearse, editor of New Media Age, believes the search giant might struggle to crack the market.
He said: "Google Buzz is yet another attempt to launch a new service beyond its core search engine. Consumers and advertisers have embraced existing social networks and it will be very difficult to tempt them away to Google's latest attempt at social media."
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Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
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Light rain
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