I’m catching a lot of flack for being a believer in Google Buzz. Interestingly enough most of the flack is coming in through Google Buzz itself. One theme I keep hearing is “Where’s the social games?” The launch of Google Buzz brings up an interesting debate – are social games are the killer app of social networks.
With Google’s launch of its social networking feature for Gmail and mobile devices, Google Buzz, Tuesday, some are already speculating what’s next for new service. A killer app for Buzz? Social games.
If social games are the killer app, the question then becomes – is Google Buzz going to support social games? Off of the top of my head I can think of a few reason for and against it.
Reasons not to support social games
- Facebook is already having difficulty striking a balance between viratlity and spam
- Social games have the potential to change the dynamic of the social network itself – A-ya Chiu of Taiwan added over 4,400 friends on Facebook to decorate her virtual house in Pet Society
- Have to deal with app developers – It can be a pain as we’ve seen the flack over Apple’s app store, however Google has already dived into this with the Android app store
Reasons to support social games
- Certainly promotes usage – Facebook has a good idea of how important social games and apps are to its daily usage numbers
- It can promote mobile use of Buzz – People have to get the game fix on wherever they are
- Promote location-based features through augmented reality games – Also lends nicely to Google’s geek cred
Reasons for supporting social games beyond Buzz
- Can push Android and Chrome OS for netbooks – If they’re also working on a tablet version of Chrome OS, the games piece might be critical to its adoption
- Drives transactions – Anyone remember Google Wallet, maybe they can dust it off
- Push open data standards which will loosen the grip Facebook and Twitter have on users
- Push Google’s campaign for HTML5 and 3D in the browser – Google Chrome OS doesn’t support Flash; they spend their own money building out O3D while at the same time supporting it’s open competitor WebGL
Google hasn’t always been consistent in their message but overall they seem to support open web standards over proprietary formats. My guess is that open standards are in their blood and they think they can out compete anyone no holds barred. If the world was using HTML5 and WebGL at the expense of other game engines and Flash they couldn’t be happier. Some have already speculated that Google could change gaming and that’s a whole new market for them to cash in on.
Problem is Gmail is a tool, not a service
Of course Gmail, the home of Buzz is a tool and not a true social network. I use Gmail for personal and business where as I use Facebook more for fun – wasting time. Google search is also a tool, and we’ve seen how much they’ve cluttered their search homepage with ads or anything else that might be of interest. Google knowingly leaves hundreds of millions of dollars on the table not putting ads on their homepage.
I’m betting that Google won’t be able to resist the chance to dive into the social game market, the question is if they do it in Gmail or outside of it? They could easily launch Buzz as a stand-alone site – get people use to it in Gmail but let it all hang out on the stand-alone site. Then again maybe they have a few tricks up their sleeve to strike a natural balance between virality and spam? It might be odd to play a game inside of Gmail, but they could also let you jump off site for the playing experience. In this scenario Buzz is just the communication piece. If that’s the route they go I would also expect them to require O3D or WebGL as they’ve already stated that they restricted Chrome OS to only web apps for security reasons.
What do you think – will Buzz support social games?
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