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by The Newshound

on Feb 10

Google takes swipe at Facebook, Yahoo! swipes back

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Search giant Google is set to introduce a new feature that allows Gmail users to view media and status updates shared by fellow users – taking on Facebook and Twitter in the process.

The feature adds a module to the Gmail screen that will display a stream of updates from individuals a user chooses to connect with, a format popularised by both Twitter and Facbook.

However, Yahoo! has criticised Google for rehashing other platforms’ tools.

After Google announced the release of its Buzz tool, Yahoo! PR released a statement highlighting how it had already launched a similar feature (Yahoo Updates) nearly a year before Google.

“Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original,” said a tweet that appeared on the US Yahoo! Twitter account.

A blog about the Buzz tool released on the Google Blog by product manager Tood Jackson is tight-lipped about the origins of the tool.

“We’ve relied on other services’ openness in order to build Buzz (you can connect Flickr and Twitter from Buzz in Gmail), and Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system. Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversation,” explains Jackson in the blog.

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2 Comments

Sam
  • Wrote on 10 Feb, at 03:38PM
It does look very similar. I guess time will tell whether this really takes off...there are already so many ways to share information, it would have to offer something really unique to grab attention away from facebook and twitter.
MJF
  • Wrote on 10 Feb, at 09:23PM
Who said you had to be the first in order to win the competition? Yahoo may have released a similar product earlier, but it certainly hasn't reached prominence. They may well be overtaken if Google takes this seriously.

Google's muscle comes from their background engineering, databases, Google earth etc. They are playing catch up with the others but have a huge brand.

Twitter is an extremely limited tool that has popularity above and beyond what it deserves in terms of the 'package' of benefits it offers. Its strength is simlicity.

WIth such huge search engine might I think Google may just have what it takes to 'be' the internet. Not just a search engine, but the also encompass the majority of uses of the internet itself.
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