You knew Google wouldn’t sit on the sideline for long as other social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter continued to rise in popularity. Word from Hitwise says that Facebook actually surpassed Google in top site portal performance for the first time ever last month in the United States. Alexa, on the other hand, in its account of the top websites in the world still has Google on top. So it’s not total panic time at Google yet.
Google has already integrated real-time data into its search results through data deals with the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. But stakes are higher than mere quality search results at this point. Google’s position as the dominant web portal is now being threatened.
Google’s most recent answer is Google Buzz. Google Buzz is a handy social networking system built into Gmail that enables social networking activities like instead messaging and file sharing. You can get real-time updates on topics of interest as well as enabling you to connect to pre-existing social networking services like Flickr and Twitter.
Google is a bit late to the party, but with its heavy mass of Gmail users, Buzz could easily catch on and become the next social networking fad.
