Does Google Buzz Have The Blues?

If you’re a Gmail user like all of us here at Salty Waffle you got a strange email sometime yesterday talking about Google Buzz, privacy, law suits, and about 8.5 million dollars. Using Gmail to contact users is certainly out of character which they admitted in the opening line, but what they had to say was interesting.

Google was announcing that their social media baby–Buzz has finally settled a law suit with a number of Google Buzz users regarding privacy. The settlement is on its way to being approved and will result in a fund being set up to the tune of 8.5 million dollars to support “organizations promoting privacy education and policy on the web”.

In the wake of much hyped and then less than stellar adoption of Buzz, this certainly can’t help. There are a number of reasons why Buzz is being seen as mostly a failure and there are shadows of its further demise. Fittingly, TechCrunch published an article just yesterday outlining the reasons “Buzz sounds like crickets”.

At Salty Waffle we offer the Buzz button our pages and articles via ShareThis and haven’t seen much traffic from it as compared with Twitter and Facebook. This seems to be the trend and with this black eye on privacy issues in full light, do you think Buzz will ever really catch on? Some say it came along too late, others say that there are simply better options, and still more claim it was doomed to fail from the start. But, as we know, Google is a powerhouse and certainly has all the money and resources to make things work. The question is, will it ever be adopted and flocked (pun intended) to like Twitter? Facebook?

If you use Buzz, why? If not, why? Do you find that other social media channels are easier to share on and its just a matter of time until Google Buzz gets it right and takes over? Do you think its a failure all together and forever doomed? And lastly, (please let us know in the comments) what annoys you about Google Buzz the most?

And…when you aren’t at work or near a little one, search YouTube for Google Buzz Ad Parody. (There is one bad word at the end, but its hilarious)