What Google’s Buzz launch taught us:

• Go into every launch with three home-run points of excitement that will get media, and, in turn, consumers, talking. Google did not have this.
• Consumers can’t possibly understand what Google Buzz is, because it was clear the media didn’t grok it after the announcement.
• Don’t let people leave with more questions than answers.
• It’s possible even Google executives don’t know what Buzz may ultimately become. Do you think anybody in Apple’s management doesn’t know exactly where the iPad is headed?
• Google is perfecting, not inventing. Buzz is an effort to improve social media. Do Twitter and Facebook, but better, with more people, and in one place. The most successful consumer products and Web destinations have been perfections, not inventions: the iPod, the iPhone, and the Google search engine itself.
• This is a prediction, not a lesson: While Twitter has yet to make real advertising revenue from its many millions of users, you can bet Buzz will be a revenue producing venture from Day One.