If you haven’t been in Gmail lately, you might not have noticed Google‘s new toy tool.  It is called Google Buzz.  In a nutshell, Google is integrating a social media component into Gmail.

In Buzz, users can strike up public or private conversations with integrated video, photos and links.  Kind of like the Status Updates on FaceBook.  In that regard, it is a step above Twitter… the king of the micro-blog/status update world.  Twitter doesn’t allow inline photos and videos, so when users share them, viewers have to leave Twitter to view the associated content.

I haven’t had a lot of time to play in it, but it seems kind of like “Google Wave Lite” to me…  Google Wave has many of the same types of features… of course it adds a LOT more integration with a wider variety of tools… and isn’t tuned to automatically pull in content as sites like Twitter, Flickr and YouTube are updated.

OK, they are very different, but I see the same type of collaboration available with Buzz as there is with Wave.

But there is a big picture here…

The big picture is that you NEED a Gmail account.  Google Buzz, Google Wave, Google Analytics, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Voice…  Are you getting the big picture?  There is WAY more than that, but those are a good start.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Give Me A Buzz (overlypositive.com)
• The Buzz About Google Buzz (online.wsj.com)
• Google Buzz Isn’t Exactly Humming Along (solution.allthingsd.com)
• Four Reasons to Use Google Buzz (threeminds.organic.com)
• Google Buzz – Gmail adds social network functionality [VIDEOS] (nickburcher.com)
• Google Buzz – What Happened to Google Wave? (boneheadseo.com)
• Google to make Gmail a little more social (news.cnet.com)
• Hands On With Google Buzz – It’s a Stream in Your Inbox (webmonkey.com)
• Google Buzz Takes Aim at Facebook, Twitter (sfist.com)