Well, pretty much everyone screwed up this story today, so it’s time for some clarification. Despite what you may have read all over the web, Google is not removing Buzz from Gmail. At least not anytime soon.
The confusion stems from Google VP of Product Marketing Bradley Horowitz’s comments to Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan earlier today at TED. Horowitz said that Google was considering separating Buzz from Gmail. But what he meant was that they’d consider making another app that you can use outside of Gmail, not that it would be ripped from Gmail itself, Google has clarified. I mean, it has been out for three whole days, and usage is skyrocketing, did anyone really think Google was going to mute it so quickly?
“No, we’re not planning to remove Buzz from Gmail. Among some of the features we’re considering is building a standalone Buzz experience in addition to the one in Gmail at some point in the future,” a Google spokesperson tells us.
That said, there are plenty of people who want to turn off Buzz in their Gmail entirely. These are users who opted-in to using it, but are now overwhelmed by its noise. But you can do that in the footer of Gmail easily. There’s also no shortage of people concerned about the service’s privacy ramifications. Google already made some tweaks last night to alleviate some problems — expect more of those soon.
So everyone just calm down and keep buzzing. And feel free to follow us there.
[image: New Line Cinema]
Google Buzz is a social network and sharing product built by Google. Based within Google Profiles, Buzz offers a stream of status updates, pictures, links, and videos from your friends. You can “like†these items and you can comment on them. Updates from Flickr, Picasa, Google Reader, or Twitter can also be automatically imported into a Buzz stream. Buzz will recommend items you might like based on your friends’ activity. Buzz Features include: Buzz Online Auto-following: Buzz allows users can auto-follow...
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