On 9 February 2010, Google announced that it will include social networking features — called Buzz — in the consumer edition of Gmail. The social elements, which are immediately available, enable users to surface and share photos, videos, links and status updates from multiple social sites. Buzz also includes services for peer and content recommendations and geo-location.

The features planned for Google’s Buzz offer an early example of how navigation solution providers could potentially extend their solutions’ value proposition into social networking as well as user and places discovery.

One significant feature of Google Buzz is its ability to geo-tag a user's comments and responses. The integration of this feature with Google Maps and potentially with Google Maps Navigation can provide a new user experience. It also shows how navigation service offerings can evolve beyond simple routing functions to include comprehensive location-based services that encompass search, discovery, routing guidance and location sharing. For example, integration into the routing engine will enable users who find another user's review of an Italian restaurant to obtain directions to it from their location. After reaching the destination and eating at the restaurant, users may leave a new review geo-tagged to the restaurant and its location for other users. Next-generation navigation value propositions like this will become increasingly important to navigation solution providers seeking survive within a commoditized market environment that offers shrinking profits.

Google Buzz is an early instance of a vendor combining user access — in this case, 175 million active Gmail accounts — with location-aware content and digital map functions. Gartner believes that Google will likely use the exposed information and location awareness to expand the reach of its AdSense and AdWords contextual advertising properties to better target users. However, the current form of Google Buzz initially will offer limited user benefits because it does not provide a well-structured approach for capturing and organizing location-aware user comments and doesn't address privacy issues. This gap in Google Buzz functionality represents a market opportunity for established competitors, such as Nokia Ovi Maps (see "Nokia's Free Ovi Maps Will Fuel Shift in Navigation Industry"), and for new and emerging companies.

Navigation solution providers, location-based services providers and automotive companies: To successfully introduce holistic navigation solutions that expand into social networking and location-based marketing aspects, companies must:

• Focus on developing and demonstrating clear user benefits (for example, filtering irrelevant information from relevant content)
• Attract and target large user bases through partnerships with content or social networking sites
• Provide intuitive integration with traditional routing-centric navigation functions (such as a one-click routing option to a user-recommended location)

Address privacy concerns by offering intuitive user settings for managing visibility and tracking privileges for other users (for example, offer an option labeled “allow only selected friends to track my location and limit visibility to others”)

• "Google Creates Navigation Evolution Milestone"— Google's free Maps Navigation application will force established companies to redefine their business model and long-term strategies. By Thilo Koslowski
• "Google Gmail Goes Social"— Google's addition of social networking features to Gmail underscores the long-term convergence of e-mail and social services offerings. By Matt Cain

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This research is part of a set of related research pieces. See Context-Aware Computing and E-Commerce for an overview.