We’ve heard the story many times now that FriendFeed is DEAD by our friend Robert Scoble and others. No surprise, the Scobleizer is saying it again today after Google’s announcement of their new product called Google Buzz. This new social tool marries the Gmail Web interface with status updates, geo check-ins and content-sharing technology in an attempt to convince the social media addicts to spend more time on Google’s sites than on competitors. They attempted to do this twice already with Wave and adding the Social Features in Google Reader but Google is attempting force this one to succeed by embedding this into the Gmail interface, one of its more popular products.

The Buzz Users, will be able to see all the content of other friends they follow while also seeing other content that their friends have “liked” or commented on. You can choose messages to be public or private including to separate groups that one defines manually. If this sounds very FriendFeedish, it is up to this point…

If you would like to hide certain types of Content, you can click on the “Not interested” button and it will attempt to hide similar content based on an algorithm (very different from FriendFeed). No surprise, Google is also a location-aware service into the mix as Google Latitude hasn’t took off as a stand-alone product. This allows users to “check in” by updating their Buzz status with a Google Maps link to their location, many say that this will kill the independent services and younger startups such as Foursquare and Gowalla. And soon inside of Google Maps for Mobile, you’ll soon see what’s Buzzing nearby from other people that have posted public content recently about that area. This is intended to provide relevant information such as restaurant reviews, traffic conditions, local events, etc. Like Google Latitude, sharing your location is an opt-in service and not on by default.

Here’s the problem:

Google has this too closely tied to Gmail

Unlike Google Wave, Google has chosen to embed this deeply into the fabric of it’s email service. Granted there are millions of Gmail users but not everyone uses Gmail nor do they want to. This immediately fragments the user base as it is doubtful that all your friends on Twitter/Facebook use Gmail today. There are many people use do not trust Google or simply have email accounts that they have had for years and have no desire for another account. This is almost a mirror-reflected project that Facebook will have trying to add with a full email service but a similar issue. This is proof that email is far from Dead as both battle for that Inbox, some will move or add another account but many consumers hate the fragmentation issues associated multiple email addresses.

No native integration of pre-existing services

Though Google has released an API set for Buzz already, they have decided for whatever reason not to import you feeds from Twitter, Facebook and other Social Sites nor have an easy way to locate your friends from those services. In other words, Google wants you to start fresh with only your Gmail Address Book and pretend the Google World is the only World in Buzzland.  That’s a very tough sell for many who has established solid bases in other sites. I’m sure that Google or an outside developer will create ways to blend these services into Buzz but it will cause Google Buzz to have a slightly slower adoption rate.

The Anti-Friendfeed

Google Buzz is quite the opposite of Friendfeed where I can link virtually ever site I’d like to my profile and feed. Google Buzz is officially a Walled Garden today. Yes it has the APIs but the average user just wants everything to be linked in a very easy manner on their profile, like FriendFeed. You can’t kill something that you are not, therefore Long Live Friendfeed and it’s Mob.

Where’s the Public Groups?

A Killer Feature for both FriendFeed and Facebook is the ability to locate Groups of People that have a similar interest in a topic to collaborate together without needing to be Friends. It may come later but I saw nothing that indicated that a Google Groups service was added to Wave. Creating both public and private Google Groups could have been a killer feature. For example, why couldn’t I create a Private Group for my Family that we could have a closed but mutual forum to simply keep family-related material private but have everyone in the loop? The same could be said for workgroups. On the flip side, I should be able to join a public group for fans of Android.

Lists and Suggestions

Twitter Lists have helped many not only organize people but help discover new people. Facebook also has a Suggestion Engine that helps discover Friends by who they already connect with. I didn’t see any of this within the Google Buzz demo.

What about Games and Apps?

I’m personally not a big user of these but I know many are inside of Facebook. To many, Farmville and Mafia Wars keeps them hooked into going to Facebook every day and is equally if not more important as sharing Messages, Pictures and Links. With 11 million daily players and counting, Farmville alone is a virtual force to be reckoned with. These ‘very addicted’ users will not migrate to Google Buzz any time soon and I think everyone has at least one family member or friend in this situation. Fragmented Friending is a major issue today, adding another social network just makes that issue worse.

Bees vs. Honey

I think Google Buzz has a lot of potential but for now it’s just added Noise to a Fragmented Social Internet. Personally,  I can’t stand Bees but I do like honey. The Content is the Honey! If Google Buzz can truly cut through the Noise and give me the best quality shared content then I’m there. If this become just another Social Network filled with more Buzzing Noise that I already can get elsewhere, I’ll just stand-by on my screened-in porch for now waiting for Google to improve the service.