I liked Google Buzz at first, for about 15 minutes. 

But when I got to the API, I saw a big red X over its future. 

They had to embrace the Twitter API to capitalize on the know-how in the developer community. Google is going it alone. Good luck with that. Maybe it will get uptake, but there's nothing here for me as a developer. I'm even more bored with Buzz after 15 minutes than I am with Twitter after three years.  

This comment in yesterday's post sums it up: "Google is a big clunky Microsoft-like company with strategy taxes, and they don't trust the web or developers, or each other, and their internal politics drive most of the decisions they make. To compete with Twitter is an easy sell inside Google, but to actually have the will to be cut-throat about it, that's another thing. It'll probably have to pay homage to Google Wave (remember that?) and therefore will have some elements that are completely incomprehensible. Twitter likely won't get killed, because Google's product will likely fall far-short of what's needed to get us all to think they can be trusted." 

I gotta say this -- they aren't even as smart as Microsoft was in its heyday.  

PS: I am a Gmail user but I don't want Buzz. How do I get it out of the user interface of Gmail? 

PPS: There's a command to turn off Buzz at the bottom of the Gmail UI.