Google Buzz could quickly become the most popular location-based service on the Internet. Not only does Buzz integrate itself into Gmail, which will give it a large mainstream user base, but Buzz also puts geolocation front and center on its mobile sites. In addition, the new Buzz layer in the Google Maps mobile interface makes it incredibly easy to find geotagged Buzz messages around you.
Sponsor
Nobody is Geotagging Tweets – So Can Buzz Geolocation Succeed?
Twitter introduced its own geolocation API in August 2009, but while we were very excited about the possible applications of this API, very few users and developers actually use it today. ReadWriteWeb’s full coverage and analysis of Google Buzz:
While location-based apps and services like Foursquare and Gowalla (which launched its own API today) have quickly grown in popularity, only 0.23% tweets currently include location data. Unlike Buzz, however, neither Twitter itself nor any of the popular Twitter client really put geolocation at the center of their applications.
Buzz’s Advantage: It Already has the Users
Now, however, Google is releasing a product to millions of people that makes geolocation a major focus of the service. Already, you can bring up the Google Maps layer and find buzz messages in virtually every location. This quick adoption makes sense, given that Google is putting the colorful Buzz logo in a prominent place on its mobile interface.
The Google Buzz mobile site also makes it very easy to see messages from nearby users (including those you don’t follow). The “nearby” button is very prominent and takes you right to a list of nearby messages, which feels a bit like BlockChalk (though without the anonymity of that service). Thanks to this, you can even get good use out of the service if none of your friends are Gmail users. You can, for example,
Tags: News
