Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Debate the Pros and Cons of Google Buzz in Ad Age

I wrote a post about Google Buzz that appeared in Ad Age&39;s Digital Next today.

I'm torn on the service, more than usual as far as these go. It got to the point where I played out a debate in the post, using the upbeat Dr. Jekyll and the misanthropic Mr. Hyde as foils.

Hyde: It feels just like Google Wave, one of the more disappointing of Google&39;s product launches. It had so much promise and became irrelevant so quickly. I don&39;t want to get duped again, so this has to be a dud.

Jekyll: It&39;s nothing like Wave. One of the biggest problems Wave had was that it wasn&39;t integrated with anything. The whole point of Buzz is the integration — it appears in Gmail; you can read and respond to updates from any Gmail client; and it integrates a number of social media services.

Hyde: It does nothing for marketers, except to provide more impressions for those sponsored links that run in Gmail.

Jekyll: Wrong again, as marketers participating in social channels such as Twitter, Flickr and YouTube can find their content and messages spreading even further as more people use Buzz.

Now that I&39;ve used a bit more, I&39;m leaning far more to the Hyde side where I&39;m about ready to give up on it. I&39;m not sure it adds value and it feels like a distraction. But I&39;m especially curious as to how the mobile angle plays out.

I welcome your take here or at Ad Age, where there&39;s far more posted than the excerpt I shared here.