In a previous post I speculated how Google's surprise release of Buzz was the first act in a war against Facebook. I and most of the internet pundits jumped to the capitalistic conclusion that it's always about competition. But that's not really how Google typically operates. Of course the exception is their ad business and the search engine--which is a key component of that ad business. That's their core business and revenue stream and with that, they have to compete. For everything else, though, they are not interested in domination as much as they are in obtaining influence. 

As with most of Google's products, Buzz is an open platform. It's there to be studied, enhanced, and hooked into by anyone. It's built as a framework for trying out cool ideas in the social networking space. Google couldn't just sit by any longer while services like Facebook and Twitter lead the way and make the rules. Facebook and Google both have a vision of finding ways to make the internet a more organized and relevant place for users. Buzz is Google's way of making sure it helps define how that works. 

Google will continue to enhance Buzz not to drive the other sites away but to raise the bar for all of them. Already, Buzz has set a few new expectations for social networking: users' posts should be able to flow into and out of various sites, updating should be in real-time, and it should be able to share the contacts and groups already existing in users' email programs.

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