If you’re like me and use Gmail, chances are you’ve been mostly pleased with the product.  Yes, there have been eyebrow raising tweaks and additions, but for the most part they’ve been optional add-ons.  More importantly, any new functionality has been opt-IN meaning I as a user have to actually click and confirm that I want it.  Google asks “would you like to try this new feature?” and I can say “yes” or “no.”

That was all going swimmingly until little over a week ago.  Google released a service called Buzz, a new component for gmail that integrates facebook-like social networking functionality.  On the surface this idea is interesting and actually provides some of the functionality originally promised in Google Wave.  Unfortunately, Buzz has turned out to be a nightmare on every level.

First, it attempts to merge email and social networking – two things that a lot of users still view as mutually exclusive.  Email has grown to become a utilitarian tool – social networking is a mini version of the internet.  Folks use them to communicate in different ways.  Google took a finely tuned, 5-year old service (gmail) and bolted on an untested, totally new service with a totally different form and function.

Second, it was thrown at users automatically as an “opt-out” service, not an “opt-in” one.  Gmail users simply logged in one day and found this mess running.  You had to search for and then remove the service if you didn’t want it, not the other way around.

Third, and most important, Google took the long-established trust of Gmail users and trashed it by circumventing their privacy and publicly displaying information that was otherwise private or obscure.  As a result, Buzz is now on the Federal Trade Commission’s insidious-services-to-watch list and multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed against it.  All within the span of about a week and half.

all avoidable

My biggest problem with this, and the fundamental jist of this post, is that this ALL COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDABLE.  Google isn’t some little rag-tag “mom and pop” – it’s a major billion-dollar corporation.  Smart people work there.  Common sense should have easily made this a typical, successful release.

Even worse, Facebook has notoriously suffered major privacy snafus themselves, providing any competing business a case study in what NOT to do when rolling out a new feature.  Why did Google not pay attention?

who’s to blame?

Simply put, Google has become too big for it’s own good – too caught up in it’s success to consider the needs and behavior of the public.  Instead of listening to what their users need and creating products around it, they force-feed what they pompously think is best and throw privacy to the wind.  A recent interview with CEO Eric Schmidt proves as much.  Google engineers, who often are responsible for too much of a product roll-out, become more arrogant and blind to what users want.  They ask “why wouldn’t you like this?” after the fact instead of “how would you like this to work?”

And because they’re so big, they likely won’t change.  While Buzz is a failure, it hardly puts a dent in Google’s overall business.  The stock price may get dinged, legal defense will have to be paid for and egos will be bruised, but this event won’t sink the ship.

the point?

Even though Google won’t change, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn from their failures.  Small and medium businesses can’t afford such costly mistakes and rule #1 should ALWAYS apply: know your users, know the marketplace.

Google is huge, but slips like this are what give competitors the edge.