Lack of Critical Mass: Case Google Buzz

Elise wrote about the almighty Critical Mass and after reading I was just thinking Google Buzz, which had all of the potential to become a hit. One prediction was written by CNNTech with fancy headline "Why Google Buzz will be a hit" ~1year ago. Now one year after article it is easy to say that Buzz was not a big hit. Article's points why Buzz would be a hit are still valid. Google Buzz is integrated to GMail and Smartphones Google Maps-app, so there should be enough potential users to use Buzz. Buzz is implemented well and it has nice features, but like VHS vs Beta-battle Buzz lost game against Twitter & Facebook.

I started personally to use Google Buzz immediately after it was published to wider user group. At starting point there were quite many Buzzes and it was easy to find useful information like good MTB-trails at the Alps. Many of my friends used Buzz like a Facebook/Twitter to tell their "current status" to others. After couple of months there were only few new Buzzes on my network and on the map. On my network explanation for lack of new Buzzes was easy. Everyone was using IRQ/Twitter/Facebook and Google Buzz didn't offer big improvements to those. It was just a service among others.
After 6months it was clear to me that Buzz was not a huge success and there were only minimal change to gain that critical mass to drag more users. Currently I am pretty sure that it is only matter of time when Google announces shutdown of Buzz. I would guess that Google will use Buzz -engine & architecture in some Maps-addon, where people can share for example experiences of restaurants, which are showed in Google Maps.