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It’s no shocker that the web is buzzing about Google Buzz (terrible pun intended), Google’s most aggressive push into social media yet.

The new social updating and aggregation feature integrates with your mobile and your Gmail, providing a service that seems like a hybrid of Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and Yelp.

People are already taking sides, including some of Google’s competitors. Yahoo struck first, putting out an e-mail about its own previous (and similar) social media efforts before Google even finished its announcement. Microsoft didn’t take long to make its thoughts heard, either.

Here are some choice reactions from web experts and Google’s rivals:

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Microsoft

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Microsoft’s statement can be distilled into one very simple phrase: Nobody should care about Google Buzz.

Here’s the actual statement in its entirety:

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefited from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

In three sentences, Microsoft manages to rip Google for building yet another social network, claim the social innovation crown, and promote its social integrations with its popular Hotmail product.

In reality, Buzz is far more advanced than anything Google has ever put out. However, Microsoft does own a piece of something that directly compete with Google Buzz: Facebook.

Google Buzz has the most potential yet to give Facebook and Microsoft trouble in the social space.

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Yahoo

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The Internet giant did not explicitly react to Google Buzz, but it did time an e-mail titled “Latest on Yahoo!’s social updates” with the intent of reminding people about its social features in the face of Google’s newest social media monster.

Choice quotes:

“There are now more than 200 Yahoo! and third-party sites that feed into Yahoo! Updates – like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp and Yahoo! Buzz – allowing people to see and share updates such as when they’ve uploaded photos, changed their status, buzzed up a news story or posted a new restaurant review, all from Yahoo!”

“Yahoo! Updates now appear throughout the Yahoo! network, in popular sites and services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo.com, and Yahoo! Messenger and across our content properties, meaning people can always keep up to date with their friends’ latest activities”

“Yahoo! Updates are featured prominently on the “What’s New” section of Yahoo! Mail, which is used by more than 300M people worldwide. People can also update their status and share it with friends and family directly from the “What’s New” tab”

Clearly Yahoo feels threatened by Google’s product and, perhaps just as importantly, the buzz it is receiving. Yahoo is quickly becoming the oft-forgotten “other guy” despite being first with some of the features that Google is touting.

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Forrester Research

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Forrester Research’s Augie Ray had this to say:

“While bringing relevance filtering to the noisy social media world could prove a significant advantage, this doesn’t (yet) seem to be enough to pull people away from the networks they’ve already created elsewhere. Buzz doesn’t update user’s Twitter or Facebook feeds, so I expect experimentation but not wholesale switching in the foreseeable future. Buzz could end up supplementing rather than replacing users’ other social networks for now.”

We agree with Forrester’s initial reaction: Google Buzz isn’t compelling enough to pull people away from Foursquare, Facebook or Twitter — at least, yet. Google is putting a lot of resources into this project, and it won’t give up the fight for social easily.

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You

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Now it’s your turn. What do you think of Google Buzz? Do you think it has the potential to challenge Facebook or Twitter, or is this going to end up being another Orkut or Google Knol (remember that thing?).

Let us know in the comments.

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Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Gmail, Google, Orkut, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube

Tags: Google, google buzz, microsoft, Yahoo

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