Google has introduced its latest innovation to combat Facebook – Google Buzz. It is Google’s push to try and pry into the lucrative social networking market, one which it had failed prior with Orkut.

Google Buzz for Mobile is available if you visit http://buzz.google.com on your iPhone or Android phone, and once again Google has given first priority by updating Google Maps. Google Maps 4.0 for Android was released just after news of Buzz broke, and now supports Buzz and is available in the Android market.

Personally, I haven’t had the opportunity to see it in my Gmail yet, and Google is promising to roll it out in the next few days: “We’re still rolling out Buzz to everyone, so if you don’t see it in your Gmail account yet, check back soon.” Trying it out on my Nexus One, my initial thoughts were – it’s Twitter with location-based enabled (something Twitter has already run tests on), albeit one with a poorer connection and that I couldn’t find anyone nearby (!) Therefore, insufficient reason to use it unless you have friends all using it too, which is all the more unlikely when most of them would be on Facebook or Twitter instead.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t fall into gutter as did Google Wave (where at one point of time a Wave invite could have drawn US$2).

About Google Buzz
Google Buzz is a social integration tool by Google, designed to integrate into the company’s web-based email program, Gmail. Shared links and messages show up in users’ inboxes. Buzz focuses on integrating photos, videos, and links as part of the “conversations” aspects of Gmail like conversation threading. Buzz allows users to choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a small group of friends each time they post. Buzz is currently integrated with Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter.