I’ve had Google buzz not-so-conveniently nestled in my Gmail account for almost 24 hours now.  Most of what I’m seeing from “followers” is something like, “just thought I’d put something here to see what happened.”  From my perspective, nothing.  But because it’s Google, surely they have something more to offer than a “me-too” service that copies Twitter.

It would appear that several brands, including Samsung, are already jumping on the bandwagon.  Maybe it’s because many brands were not early adopters to other Social Network sites.  Maybe because brands are concerned that Google is about to take over the internet and they better get in line or forever be relegated to tier-two networks.  Maybe, Social Media budgets are bigger, and the new guy doesn’t want to find the same fate as the previous guy who lost his job after saying that Social Media was a fad and only good for teens.

So, for job preservation purposes, it would make sense to dig a little deeper.  Is it just an aggregator for social networking sites in the same way Google Reader pulls all your RSS feeds into one convenient location?  An interesting, and seemingly innocuous feature, is the recommendation portion of Buzz.  Google can filter out posts that you are not likely to read anyway.  Wonder if that ties into real-time search.  Wonder if Google gets preferential treatment?  Or if pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers are somehow more “relevant” in Buzz.

What I don’t see is link tracking like you get with Bit.ly, or TwitterFeed where Google Analytics is incorporated with UTM tags for reporting.  Something that is an absolute if you are a business, not so much if you are checking a friend’s status.  No mention of Facebook either.

I do see images from links, videos inline, the ability to comment directly to tweets or comments that are directed to the person providing the original post using an @ reply.  Recommended buzz raises an eyebrow and is something that is tied to others you are following.  It’s not completely clear if they have to select you to see what they are following, or if you are selected by default because of your connection through buzz.

Let’s take a second to review this specifically.  Recommended buzz, and the delivery of that to your inbox, makes me think of things like Page Rank for search.   If I can have my products presented in a thread to friends of friends with comments, that just might be very powerful for me in terms of branding.  Especially if I have a way to “seeing” that communication.

So, in conclusion, there is no conclusion.  It’s just too early to say.  But, you can be certain that there are several brands developing a strategy to address Buzz.  After all, Google is THE internet giant and there is no ignoring them.