Almost every other week, the Google Inc.
machine reveals some brand new product or service that gets everyone talking and ranting online, and also leads them to believe the World has now been fundamentally changed forever.
Maybe in recognition of this self-created phenomenon, this week Google revealed and released Google Buzz to the world.
Buzz is an all encompassing online social service, which aggregates data from your various other online social identities and accounts, very much like what Google Reader does for the blogs you follow.
It also adds its own layer of sharing and status updates into the mix to try to make one easy social media package.
It has a head start on easy, because it's already embedded by default in your GMail account menu, allowing you to connect with the contacts you've been chatting with and exchanging emails with.
Since Google likely holds the single largest storehouse of people's online contacts, data and connections ever to be assembled, this was bound to happen at some point.
Buzz tries to be many things to many people, a sort of chat meets email, meets discussions, meets media sharing.
If that sounds very familiar, it's only because others have tried it before, like FriendFeed for example.
The most important thing it brings to mind, however, is Google Wave, that last revolutionary thing that made everyone believe Google will save and/or change and/or destroy the world as we know it.
Only a few months ago everyone was talking about it.
It was touted as a whole new way of communicating, a master stroke, and many other marketing cliches amalgamated.
To be fair, much of this hype doesn't necessarily come from Google HQ, but you can't ignore that they've slowly inserted themselves into a position where they will automatically be hyped by the online glitterati and the masses alike.
Google Wave did sound like a great idea, from the developer preview videos I browsed through.
And it was surely revolutionary when compared to Apple's big creation this year, an obese iPhone (the iPad) which can only execute one app at a time.
Google even plan to make it an open source platform, always a happy part of the Google model.
Google Wave's big debut did end up being a bit of a disappointment.
Everyone rushed to get in, exchanging invitations for the limited beta, and once they logged in no one was sure what they were supposed to do with.
There were plenty of comments flying around about Google having invented Wave to make 20-somethings feel stupid and technologically inept, most people just didn't quite get it.
Google Wave was another new online profile they had to look after and fuss over, and it actually required them to write, and think, and construct sentences and thoughts, as compared to answering frivolous surveys on Facebook or sharing videos on YouTube.
The general reaction to this revolutionary service seems to have been one of embarrassed apathy.
Google Buzz looks like Google's attempt to put a foot into the growing social media juggernaut while using people's established online accounts and activities, instead of breaking the mold and starting from scratch, like they tried with Wave.
A sensible move, certainly, and a inevitable move by the internet giant who likes to have its hand in everything to do with the online ecosystem.
But one still wonders why.
The web is already overflowing with social media sites that seem hell-bent on re-creating the dot.
com bubble of the 90s with their heady strategies.
Google on its own has too many horses in this race, including GChat, Voice, Orkut, Google Wave and some others that are sure to be lurking in the shadows.
It is just going to lead to more fragmentation and confusion amongst an already confused populace.
Google is certainly getting a lot of buzz out of Buzz.
Whether it's a buzz of excitement or of social confusion remains to be seen.