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Social media is a fast-paced field where keeping your edge means staying on top of the latest developments each day. If you blinked, you might have missed the debut of Google Buzz — Google’s latest foray into the social arena. It’s been a whirlwind of announcements, reactions and a whole new class of best practices. If you missed out on any of it, here’s a roundup of the Google Buzz stories that made it into our e-mail newsletter, SmartBrief on Social Media over the past two weeks. Google Buzz debuts with Twitter, Flickr connectivity Google is making a fresh attempt at social media with Buzz, a Gmail-based application that lets users keep tabs on their contacts while sharing updates, images and links. The company says the service will let users combine content from other sites, including Twitter and Flickr, while streamlining content for quick and easy reading. The service is hampered by a lack of connectivity with Facebook, Samuel Axon notes, especially as Facebook gears up to launch a webmail service of its own. Mashable (2/9), Ars Technica (2/9) Google modifies Buzz in response to privacy concerns Google is responding to privacy concerns about its Buzz social tool, saying it will no longer automatically connect users with their Gmail contacts or other network items, such as public Picasa albums and shared stories on Google Reader. Analysts say nixing the auto-follow feature was a major improvement to the service, which Google says was sampled by tens of millions of users in its first 48 hours. The New York Times (2/15) Making the most of Google Buzz Users of Google Buzz can get more out of the tool by adding text-marking language to their posts or transmitting a Buzz message via e-mail or mobile device, this article suggests. Using labels to improve organization can also be helpful, the author notes. PC World/Today @ PCWorld blog (2/12) Google Chrome Extension adds Facebook to Buzz A Google Chrome Extension devised by David Mulder allows Buzz users to add information from Facebook’s News Feed to their Gmail sidebars. Once installed, the extension lets users access their Facebook News Feed and post Facebook status updates from Google Buzz and their Gmail inbox. TechCrunch (2/16) Google exec: Buzz won’t kill Twitter or Facebook Google Buzz is intended to complement, not kill off, rival services like Facebook and Twitter, says Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management. Google plans to make Buzz the most open social-media service on the market, Horowitz says, providing a hub from which users can access and update all their networks. “This is creating a new category of communication,” Horowitz says. “Philosophically we want this to be open in every way, both in and out,” he adds. eWeek.com (2/21) Signing up for SBoSM is a fast, free, easy way to make sure you’re never caught off guard concerning social-media news. Our exclusive summaries will help you digest the latest updates in a flash. Check out today’s issue and see what else you’ve been missing. Image credit, Zeffss1 , via iStock

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SmartBrief on: Google Buzz