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March 28, 2024

Google Buzz's B2C/B2B Blur

Ah, Google finally strikes back against Facebook and Twitter eating into its breakfast, if not lunch. More on that soon in Content Bridges. For the moment, consider one interesting post from PC World’s David Coursey good quick rant on Google’s split personality, selling him a “paid Google Apps Premier Edition”, while offering some more advanced functionality in the free Buzz. Among his basic asks:

  • “I want Google to start treating me like a person. Just one person, not as at least three different accounts. (I also have a pre-Google YouTube account with yet another user name).
  • I want a single login for all Google services”.

The bigger notion here: the work we all do in our work lives has blended, for good and bad, with our non-work lives. The web products we use then need to address that blur. The Wall Street Journal recently took on this blur with its new WSJ Pro product, for instance. For Google, it’s a big question, a question of how much revenue it can wring out of business users in the years ahead.  Yes, it can target specific advertising to business readers, but getting two revenue streams — hey, that’s a new idea — from them will be better. Clearly, Buzz is just a step, but it raises the larger question of an issue Google has had for years: how to get more dollars out of the enterprise.

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