Any Gmail users encountered the new Google Buzz?
It's an attempt to rival Facebook and Twitter, by allowing you to share updates and photos, etc, from various sources with your Gmail contacts. It integrates tweets and a lot of Google's products like YouTube, but no Facebook yet. On GPS-enabled mobile devices you can check for public updates made by people nearby - oddly, if they've allowed it to share their "exact location," it actually gives their full street address (with house number).
I've no intention of using it, but what's really annoying is that you're automatically set to "follow" everyone on your Gmail contacts list, and vice-versa, and although you can stop following other people it doesn't seem like you can stop them following you. So you'd have to think carefully about what you share and how, unless there's something I've missed.
It seems stupid for them to immediately import your email contacts for use in this social networking feature, as if they'd be compatible. Just because I've exchanged emails with the customer support guy at an online store, doesn't mean I want him in my social network - but there he was, until I actively "unfollowed" him. This should be opt-in, not opt-out.