[Posted by Matthew Wheeler
Solutions Consultant at Neolane ]

Google Buzz is being lauded as one of the hottest new social applications, but many marketers are still wrapping their arms around what it actually does, and how it can potentially benefit their programs. As a basic primer, Google takes news feeds from applications like Facebook, FriendFeed or Twitter and consolidates them into one interface that’s already integrated users’ Google accounts and makes them easily accessible from their Gmail interface. As nice as it sounds, there’s very little that’s innovative or unexpected.

There’s been tremendous backlash lately in the blogging and privacy communities in regards to what Google did wrong with Google Buzz. TechCrunch recently wrote a compelling piece on this very topic: Loud Noises! Google Buzz Is A Broken Instrument Capable Of Beautiful Music.

In our opinion, Google was wrong to automatically sign up everyone who had a Gmail account, and as a result exposed information rather publicly – information that many users may not have known they were sharing (e.g. lists of frequently contacted people).

Why should you as a marketer care?
Google’s sin wasn’t that it was helping aggregate information across social channels – plenty of people are opting-in for that every day. Google’s transgression was that it didn’t make it clear what information users were sharing, and made the broad-based assumption that users were going to want to share everything.

So, what can we learn from this?
To put it plainly, choice is king and opt-in is essential. If you prove you can provide good content, you’ll find plenty of people willing to opt-in; especially if you provide options for the type and level of communications they can receive. Automatic opt-in to newsletters may annoy your customers which may drive them to opt-out of everything in revolt.

Google has plenty of great applications and services, and certainly cross-selling them to existing users is a priority for them. However, force-feeding users something that they didn’t ask for can have disastrous results, even if it is something they may ultimately want.