Google Buzz launched this past week with much fanfare and immediately generated a visceral reaction from both privacy advocates and fans of the the FriendFeed service. Before getting into those issues I'll take a minute to give you my take on Google Buzz and what it means for content creators and web community builders.

There are two main components to Google Buzz, aggregation and publishing. It's an aggregator that pulls information from other sites and adds them to your stream. I'll start by describing some of the publishing features. There are mobile and locational components to Google Buzz as well that are worth exploring. I won't cover them in this post though.

The image below shows the window that tells you what you have connected and what is available to connect to Buzz. The list of potential sites and services is mysteriouly generated based on things you have linked in your Google profile. My profile is here. If you don't have a Google Profile then I don't think Buzz will be of much use to you. The key thing to remember is that besides needing a Google Profile you also need to have personal links added to your profile (Google suggests some good ones) in order to have those sites available to add to Buzz. That means you can't just add any old RSS feed into the mix. It should surprise no one that Google gives high priority to Google owned services such as Picasa, YouTube and Google Chat.

Then there's the issue of the stream created by the sites you add. It's viewable in two places, your Google Profile and in Gmail. The image below shows what my Google Profile looks like with Buzz entries. Notice that people can now comment and like entries right from your profile.

As I mentioned earlier the other place when you can find your stream is within Gmail itself. This has caused a bit of controversy and confusion because it has its own intelligence in determining possible contacts based on your Gmail contacts. And it also requires a Gmail account to use the service which is a different approach than other Google services. The image below shows what the stream looks like in Gmail. Notice that there is a box at the top of the page that allows you to enter content directly from within Buzz.

Google Buzz is also a publisher. You can create status updates from within the interface in Gmail. There's not doubt that it is very similar to Twitter but there are some important differences. There is no 140 character limit with Buzz. You can also add links to stories, pictures and videos separately from the status update. Buzz then imports the content you link to so it can show a preview of the content in your update. So if you link to a YouTube video then the video will be embedded. If you link to a news story then it will import the title and a summary. If you post images it creates a gallery with a lightbox effect. The two images below show the post editor with the video link added and then the video viewed within Buzz.

So with Buzz you get a much richer media experience than with Twitter. If you add a link to an audio file it will also embed a flash based audio player. So if you're someone who creates or shares a lot of media then this is a very nice platform to publish on.

The integration with Gmail creates some interesting conversation possibilities which Google takes advantage of. If you comment on a post you then get an email reply in your Gmail inbox each time someone leaves a comment. Instead of a separate email for every comment the email simply refreshes to add the new comment. In addition you can reply to the thread (or even "like" it) right from the email (as shown in the picture below) without sending an email. So your email begins to feel a little like Google Reader with these features.

There's a lot more to it but those are some of the key features. So what opportunities are there? At the moment I think the main opportunity centers around getting involved with new technology as it becomes defined. I have a hunch based on the early activity that this is a service that will be utilized by the masses unlike some other Google offerings like Wave and Knol. People really seem to "get it." Plus for the millions of Gmail users they don't have to sign up for anything. So if you're already a Gmail user and already publishing a lot of content for the world to see I see no reason why you shouldn't opt in and start sharing. You can always turn it off later via the "turn off buzz" link at the bottom of your Gmail inbox page.

So what about the "web goes insane" part? I'm being facetious but only a little. People either seem to really love Buzz or really hate Buzz. So it's good insane and not so good insane. People seem to love buzz because of the many features it has that Twitter doesn't have. People also love and hate Buzz because of the way it generates a network for you. Buzz uses your Gmail contacts to create a suggested follow list. Whenever you follow someone they get a notification and then the opportunity to then follow you, block you or do nothing. In the initial launch it seems that the settings were too open and people had all of a sudden generated a large follow list that others could see. For some this is wonderful but for others it was horrible. To be honest I'm not sure how my network started getting generated which I do think is a problem. The system makes it very simple to share, but it can get out of control real fast. Google has responded to concerns with some improvements and more may be on the way. Some people have definitely gone way over the top in slamming Google. All they needed to do was turn it off if they didn't like the way it was working.

The second contingent of not so happy web folks are peeved about the similarity of Buzz to FriendFeed. There are a lot of similarities. But those who criticize Google for this should understand that FriendFeed was not the original aggregation site. Google purchased (and then later killed off) a service called Jaiku before FriendFeed launched. Jaiku was a service that was very much like Twitter but with aggregation of other sites. And that's what FriendFeed aimed to be. Chris Saad of JS-Kit Echo points out in a blog post that, "...the Jaiku team were involved in building it." The "it" Chris refers to is Google Buzz. So even though I think that Google is well within their rights to build this type of service the fact that they used the Jaiku team certainly takes a lot away from the claim that they robbed FriendFeed. Others feel different but I think it's a reaction to the possibility that Google Buzz may increase the decline of engagement over on FriendFeed.

I intend on using Google Buzz as my primary micro-blog/social network over the next few weeks. It's possible that all the hoopla will die down and the herd will go back to FaceBook and Twitter. Given the features included with Buzz, the speed at which Google is making improvements and the wave of mainstream interest in just the first few days, I think this offering from Google will get even more popular in the coming weeks.

***Update***

A few hours after I first posted this Google responded with a detailed post titled A New Buzz Startup Experience Based On Your Feedback. In that post they detail a new and improved start up experience designed to address the privacy concerns of those who felt too much information was exposed automatically.