Google Buzz was launched on Tuesday 9 February for Gmail users. The service allows the sharing of thoughts, multimedia and social media feeds with your friends.  

Has it seen success to date? You bet! Within 56 hours of launching the service  Google Buzz had more than 9 million posts and comments which equates to 160,000 posts and comments per hour.

Let's take this further, over 200 mobile check-ins per minute which is almost 300,000 mobile check-ins per day. 

Although there has been successes, there has also been controversy around usability and privacy. However, as usual, Google is listneing to the feedback and managed to rectify the main concerns within two days.

It was a smart move by Google to link Buzz to Gmail which made use of an existing, and active, database. This has aided the 'pick up' rate of Google's new social domain.

How has Google Buzz created such a buzz? Based on user feedback it seems the following reasons have helped Buzz gain such amazing traction. 

• Easy to use with a simple interface
• Little or no effort to start using the service and make connections
• Directly embedded into Gmail 
• Engaging, convenient and moves in real time

Ok, so there we have it, Buzz isn't going anywhere and is changing the social media industry right now. So what does it mean for the other big social players?

Firstly, Facebook and Twitter isn't going to disappear as they are far too big and have a loyal database. However, Buzz is likely to slow down the growth of Facebook and Twitter. All it takes is a few users to start spending their Facebook time on Buzz and Facebook's growth will be effected. 

Facebook and Twitter will have to respond with their own features to battle Buzz if they want to remain at the top. But you have to remember, this is only Google's first release so you can expect that we'll see some impressive features rolled out pretty soon. 

Believe or not, Google has changed everything with Buzz and this could be the silver bullet Google has been searching for.