Now that the world has enjoyed a day or so test drive, it is time to start determining if Google Buzz has what it takes to become a major player in social media.  Let’s face it, Google’s track record in social media has been less than stellar.  So there was a great deal of skepticism when the suits in Mountain View announced the new service Tuesday.

My initial reaction was one of surprise that Buzz was being launched inside the Gmail architecture.  While it is a brilliant move to essentially launch with millions of preloaded users, it also left a bad first taste in the mouths of many of their most loyal users.

I’ve used Google Buzz both at home and on my Motorola Droid.  Both are relatively easy to access and operate.  The geolocation functionality of the app brings together cool aspects of Twitter along with some of the fun elements of Foursquare & Gowalla.  I find myself interacting with neighbors whom I would normally not have a connection through Twitter or Facebook.  This opens up a wide array of possibilities for businesses & organizations like churches to connect with more of their neighbors than ever before outside of mailers & broadcast advertising.

After the disappointment of Google Wave, I feel a little gun-shy about buying into all of the hype of what Google plans to do with Buzz.  And yet we have seen how strong Gmail has proven to be over the long haul for users.

Unfortunately for Google, most of the buzz about Buzz has been negative in regard to privacy concerns.  I admit my wife freaked out yesterday when she stumbled into Gmail and saw people “following her”.  Even though she is on both Facebook & Twitter, she still is extremely concerned about privacy issues on both of those services as well.  So when she is in her words “forced” into Buzz it fed into her fears.  She obviously is not alone.

Jennifer Leggio of ZDnet doesn’t mince words:

“But the whole experience makes me feel somewhat violated and out of control. And, unlike other social networks that I can hide while I try to do work or catch up with communications, Buzz is in my face every time I go to Gmail.”

The blogosphere is overloaded today with tips on how to disable all or portions of Buzz.  That’s not exactly what Schmidt, Brin & Page likely had in mind following the launch.  Frankly, there were similar privacy concerns expressed when Gmail was launched and those have been faint at best as the years have passed by.  But this launch seems to have gotten under the skin of more folks than anticipated and frankly there are valid concerns.  The most grievous breach of privacy is that Buzz automatically displays your most frequent email contacts.  As a former journalist who relied heavily on undisclosed sources, I can appreciate how catastrophic those types of revelations might be.

Using Buzz off your mobile phone presents even more privacy concerns as noted by Barbara Krasnoff of Computerworld:

“I’d be interested to know if the people who left their first completely public messages using their spanking new Buzz accounts were aware that their exact locations were being broadcast to anyone who happened to look in. Or whether they cared.

I certainly do.”

It should be noted that you do not have to give your location when posting buzzes.  But it certainly is encouraged in order to maximize the geolocation capabilities.  Frankly letting people know where I am is appealing many times as verification.  But you can certainly see how it might be an issue.

An interesting side note is that while Google was continuing to diversify their portfolio of services, the January search engine results showed Bing slowly making up ground on the leader in light of their partnership with Yahoo.  Andy Atkins-Krüger of Multilingual Search took note of the timing as well:

“Whilst Wall Street was rubbing its hands in glee at the prospect of a ComScore announcement showing that Bing had gained market share, Google was launching ‘Buzz’ – but not exactly in a fully polished and finished state. If Google hoped to upstage the Bing advance – they did it with a certain apparent lack of preparation.”

Prepared or not, the Buzz product will have every opportunity to give Google a much stronger foothold in the burgeoning social media landscape.  And it likely will raise the standards for what can be achieved by a social media app over the course of the next year.  Frankly, it could just be the first in a number of major steps forward for the industry.  But it could also force everyone to further examine our own privacy concerns.