Google Buzz

In addition to the business version of GAE and cloud storage GS, at the I/O conference Google introduced for developers the new APIs for GMail and Google Buzz. New GMail API allows developers to embed applications directly to emails (as gadgets). These gadgets are currently only available for GMail in Google Apps, and may be added by account administrator from Google Apps Marketplace. For example, Gist and Xobni gadgets display person social information at the bottom of email (as they do it in MS Outlook and Lotus Notes). The Manymoon gadget allows to quickly create a task or project from the email. Taking into account that virtually all enterprise collaborative and social tools use email for notifications, we can expect an avalanche of new GMail gadgets, as well as increasing popularity of this email service in the enterprise segment.

Only few days ago it seemed that Google Wave will be the next Google's big project for collaboration. But Google - is a free company, where several similar projects can be developed in parallel. Today Google Buzz was unveiled, and we think that this solution is even more interesting for business than Google Wave. First, because Google Buzz - is already working (during a couple of days it will appear in all personal Google-accounts and soon will be included in Google Apps). Secondly, because Google Buzz - is actually a part of GMail. So what is Google Buzz and how you can use it for your business?

Gartner has presented the second Magic Quadrant report for Enterprise Social Software market. Since last year 3 companies have appeared in the Leaders section, that was empty in the previous report: Microsoft (Sharepoint), IBM (Lotus Connections, Quickr, WebSphere Portal) and Jive Software (SBS). They are challenged  by Atlassian (Confluence) and Open Text that earlier this year unveiled the social module for it's ECM platform - Social Workplace. Not far from it - the main competitor on the ECM market - EMC (Documentum). We also note the stealth appearance in the Magic Quadrant of Google with its revolutionary products Google Wave and Google Buzz. In general, the social software market in the eyes of Gartner analysts still looks like a Brownian motion of unclear vendors.