I may be a bit crazy, but I more think that Google Buzz is trying to fight Wave and Tweetdeck. Am I nuts? Most of the play for Buzz seems to be forcing things through your gmail inbox.
I like the idea of pre-populating your friend list. Of course this makes sense.
I am a little concerned about some of the sharing things… in the introduction to Buzz video Google highlights how it will share topics that weren’t in your friend group if a lot of your friends commented on it. But I could see this backfiring a la Facebook Beacon (hey, I wasn’t invited to this party that everyone is commenting on or hey, looks like my wife just found out I’m asking for advice on the location of her surprise birthday party.)
What is the purpose of Buzz? I’m sure it is the same as most of Google’s strategy - get as much data as possible so that the core search product can be improved. Mobile is probably the most important part of this play (in my mind.) To get an idea of how Google is watching you (i.e. collecting data) check out this part of the Google intro to Buzz video.
