What is Google’s Grand Plan for Buzz?

The launch of Google Buzz is just the latest piece of the social networking puzzle the search giant is assembling. But just what is Google up to?

With the much-hyped launch of Google Wave in 2009, it appeared Google was poised to turn online communication on its head with a whole different type of interface, but now it appears that Google has moved on to something more similar to Twitter and Facebook.

This is about taking advantage of social media adoption and defending its supremacy from encroachment of social networks. The jury is still out on just how successful Google has been in emulating Twitter and Facebook’s functionality.

First, a little bit about the new features: Buzz allows users of Gmail to update their status, have conversations, share photos and links, and sync up with Twitter and Facebook. It also enables them to follow others users, either from their contact list or by discovery through a search of all Buzz mentions.

While Google Buzz adoption may not challenge the behemoth of Facebook or the increasingly popular Twitter on their own terms, it may prove to be a helpful tool for businesses which have “gone Google.” Google has been increasing its marketing efforts for businesses to adopt its applications, including mail, documents and collaborative calendars.

So Buzz could be the next step in collaborative, in-the-cloud work as more of a competitor for in-house microblogging and conversation sites like Yammer.

“We designed Buzz to make it easy to connect with others and have conversations about things that interest you, and it’s great to see millions of you doing this already,” Google wrote in its blog. “It’s still early, and we have a long list of improvements on the way. We look forward to hearing more suggestions and will continue to improve the Buzz experience with user transparency and control top of mind.”

What Google could be doing is floating Buzz to the public right now and then, like it has with its Gmail and Google Calendar functions, offering a secured functionality to business customers which makes Ning an indirect target. The open format of Buzz at this point is helping Google sort out some of its issues, with tweaks already happening only days after its launch. One positive for Google is the speed Buzz is already being used.

“According to Google, its Buzz service already has more than nine million posts and comments. Remember, this is a service that launched on Tuesday, meaning that it’s getting more than 160,000 comments and posts per hour. That’s a staggering, staggering number,” wrote Ben Parr on Mashable.com.

Where is Google going with all of this? Maybe it will build up Buzz to be a threat to Facebook, Twitter, or Ning. Or maybe it is simply a slight of hand to take the public focus off Wave as it builds it up. Then again maybe Buzz will simply just wind up being another Orkut.