Buzz in the Social Atmosphere

QueryClick director Chris Liversidge chews over Google Buzz's feature set and 'Google Me' as well as considering what this means for Symbian.

Google's been working hard at Google Buzz's feature set, making it much more competitive with Twitter, while at the same time working on their not-so-top-secret 'Google Me' product.

With this week also seeing the launch of Google Places (though arguably just a rebranding exercise of Google Local), and reports across the industry of stronger SEO value trends in social properties is now the time we see social media deliver supercharged results for our social media campaigns?

Robert Scoble seems to think so though he's self confessedly not an expert SEO, he is mirroring the feelings of a lot of industry figures, with speculation currently rife on the value of brand mentions in social networks strengthening the rankings of pages on the brand domain without the aid of backlinks .

We're a bit more sceptical of the non-link influence factor here at QueryClick, especially as a lot of the hard evidence is either missing or tainted (I've yet to see a strong example of the phenomenon where there is not a direct backlink chain from social media profile to client domain). But it's undeniable that traffic on brand rises with a strong social presence, and there's obvious benefit to be had from offer seeding, alpha invites, and other benefits being pushed via social networks to brand audiences.

More seriously, Google's commitment to location & mobile integration with their search product, combined with their growing clout as a mobile force means any SEO worth their salt should be taking Google' social products seriously to be at the crest of the natural visibility gained when Google results are processed for App output, partner sharing, and integrated search results on Android platforms served from HTC, Samsung, Motorola and so on.

Google & Verizon's recent announcement on proposing a tiered wireless internet in return for securing en EFF friendly 'wired' internet smack of disingenuity and has led to the strongest calls of 'Evil' from even Google's biggest cheerleaders (sorry Leo!).

As Eric Schmidt says Google is now in the mobile business, that's where their growth lies and that's where their engineering excellence can really tell against the competition.

If I was Symbian right now, I'd be looking at getting my social profile into Buzz ASAP to salvage what's left of their dwindling marketshare.