In what would appear to be an effort to bring some competition to both Twitter and Facebook, Google is rolling out a new Gmail feature called Google Buzz that will allow users of their very popular email service to connect with their contracts in a format that is very much like a merging of a Twitter feed with the expanded content allowed by Facebook.

Users can update their “statuses” and tie in popular services to add content to their Buzz stream. For example, immediately after tying in my Twitter account and website (Virginia Beach Progressives), my latest tweet and blog post appeared. I have to admit…that’s pretty cool.

Whether or not Buzz will gain some traction in the social media world is to be seen, but the concept of having your social network built into your email service is not a bad idea. It is however, a double edged sword. Will Hotmail, Yahoo, and other email service users switch to Gmail in order to take advantage of Buzz?

Google has been attempting to take on social media through services like Orkut and Wave, but neither have really worked their way into the daily lives of users.

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