Google Buzz Gets Reshare Option, Competes with Twitter

This week I turned Buzz back in order to show you that the platform added what was rumored to be its most requested feature: Reshare. The addition does exactly what it sounds like — lets users reshare Buzz posts from other users — making Buzz even more Twitter-like than it was before.

After logging into (or turning back on) Buzz, you'll see a Reshare link sandwiched between Like and Email: 

Once clicked, the Buzz post will expand with an option to add a note: 

Finally, after the post has been reshared, it will appear in your feed like so: 

Some other key details: 

• Only public Buzzes can be reshared
• Everyone who has reshared a post will show up after your comments
• If content is shared multiple times, it will be collapsed below the latest reshare 
• Resharing puts the conversation into a new thread

Google's Difference

Okay, obviously it's not exactly like retweeting. The invitation to add your own comments to the reshare is a concept Twitter lacks—and will likely never see so long as the 140 character limitation is maintained. 

Currently, Twitter's baked-in Retweet tool doesn't allow any modification whatsoever, causing many Twitter users to retweet the old-fashioned way (typing RT @username, the tweet, and whatever comments will fit after all that). 

This makes Buzz a bit more interesting, regardless of which platform currently has more users. As the 16th feature to be added to Buzz since its inception, we wonder what else Google has in store. According to Todd Jackson, Google product manager, the ultimate purpose of the platform is to solve the communication challenges of regular e-mail. 

“Gmail should be the world’s best communication tool,” he said.

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Tags: buzz, enterprise 2.0, gmail, google, micro blogging, social media, twitter, web content

This week I turned Buzz back in order to show you that the platform added what was rumored to be its most requested feature: Reshare. The addition does exactly what it sounds like -- lets users reshare Buzz posts from other users -- making Buzz even more Twitter-like than it was before.