Google Buzz: Wave’s worthy successor?

I’m just going to come out and say it: Google Wave sucks. In fact, I was tempted to use the past tense there, because it’s hard to believe that Wave isn’t dead and buried. The whole experience was so disappointing that I couldn’t help but greet Google Buzz, Google’s latest attempt at web 2.0, with a certain amount of skepticism.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi50KlsCBio[/youtube]

Well, Buzz has arrived in my Gmail, has it made it to yours? There it sits, plonked beneath my inbox, inviting me to “share what I’m thinking”, a sorry-looking cross between Twitter and Facebook. Ok, so it’s barely a day old, but even in the early stages, new services should fill you with excitement and anticipation, not leave you scratching your head and wondering what on Earth Google were thinking of. In fact, this article from ReadWriteWeb is a great rundown of what exactly looks wrong so far.

To those of us who use services like Twitter and Facebook, the concept of Google Buzz is fairly simple, even if we doubt (for the moment) whether there’s a place for it in our lives. But Buzz automatically adds contacts you email frequently, and as we all know, sending an email does not always equal social media literacy or willing. I’m happy to give it a chance and see what the Buzz brings, but not everyone feels the same. The first question from one of my auto-added, technophobe followers, for example? “Ugh, how do I remove this option?!”. I think that just about sums it up….