By Carmi Levy, independent technology analyst and journalist

 By now, every Gmail user on the planet has either tried Google Buzz out, or is counting the hours until the new social networking capability is rolled out to his/her specific account.

While the debate rages over whether Google Buzz is a Facebook killer – this is a business-focused blog, so I’ll leave the Buzz vs. Farmville/Mafia Wars issue for someone else – the real story has nothing to do with consumers. Buried not too deeply in Google’s announcement was this bit about the company’s plans “to make Google Buzz available to businesses and schools using Google Apps, with added features for sharing within organizations.” 

Google’s plans to drive social networking deeper into its fast evolving Google Apps suite represents yet another inflection point in the evolution of both social networking tools – which up until now have been seen largely consumer-focused – and Web-based productivity applications whose stripped down feature set made them a showstopper for most enterprises. Read the rest of this entry »