Twitter not enough for you? Tired of all the social applications on Facebook crowding your stream? Meet Google Buzz. The Buzz reached me today and, being the shy and demure type that I am, I decided to jump in with both feet. Here’s what I found:

1. Google Buzz seems to be a blend of the Facebook live stream and Twitter.
2. Google Buzz allows you to use your existing Google message groups to send messages.
3. It automatically connected to my Google connected sites that are public (see image). That includes both Picasa and Google Reader for me. (If you do not want to share your reader go to http://www.google.com/reader and change the settings.)
4. “People you follow” on Google Buzz also show up on http://www.google.com/reader in the left menu bar.
5. Message on Google Buzz showed up automatically in my Gmail inbox. Not sure yet how to change that feature. Messages show up in the inbox with a Google Buzz logo. Once they are entered you can interact with that conversation inside your web based Gmail.

The intereface (web page) for Google Buzz isn’t that different than other social engagement websites with live streams. You can see posts from your friends and comment on them. One thing I do already like is the comments are more like Facebook than Twitter where one conversation is grouped together. Unlike Facebook you do have some control over the theme but unlike Twitter you are the only one who will get the benefit of it.

I like that you can share multiple photos in your posts as well as videos and apparently audio. Because Google Docs is right there in the same sphere it will also be very easy to link to a spreadsheet or slide presentation you have stored in Docs.

So far definitely thumbs up.