Just read this post by Andrew Parker (who, along with his colleague Eric Friedman, has helped me out more times than I can count) about Google Buzz’s location within the GMail interface. Andrew thinks the location in the GMail interface is the thing that’ll make Google Buzz a killer feature, like GChat. I think it’s a sign that Google’s losing it’s way – that Google Buzz splash screen I ran into last night annoyed the hell out of me. But perhaps that’s because I also don’t consider GChat a killer feature – I use it, sure, but as part of Adium, my IM client of choice. In my GMail interface, GChat is always closed and never signed into.
Online or offline, products should do what they’re designed to do. GMail is an e-mail client. It does e-mail very well. But when I’m e-mailing, I don’t want to be distracted with IM, and vice versa. When I’m doing various ‘social’ things on Facebook or Twitter, I’m in another place entirely, and I don’t want e-mail or IM to interrupt my goofing off.
By adding all this interface cruft to GMail, Google’s doing it’s best to increase adoption of an unproven product – but they’re putting their existing product at risk. Don’t force me to access different functions simultaneously – if it destroys the productivity gains of the core product, I’ll just go use something else.
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