That said, I think the jury is still out on Buzz’s importance to small businesses. In one respect, it’s just another proprietary social network (just like Twitter and Facebook)… with nowhere near the audience those other networks have. So it’s still very much a minor player. For a small business, their time is probably much better spent trying to engage those other larger communities first, before worrying about the more modest Buzz audience.

Buzz’s ability to act as an aggregator seems pretty cool at first, since it allows you to search not just Buzz, but also any other networks that GMail users have decided to make public. So for a small business like, oh, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS), being able to see what people are saying could be useful.

But the problem is that those searches are misleading. They don’t show what everyone is saying about NAHBS everywhere – they only show what Buzz users are saying. If I do that same search on Twitter directly, for example, I get a LOT more hits, that provide a much more real-time gestalt.

So I’m left wondering where the real value in Buzz is still…

If I mention the terrible hamburger I just ate on Google Buzz, when someone searches Google for that business, my comment is going to show up. That’s something that every business should be aware of.

Anyone who tells you that Google Buzz is somehow important for your business will undoubtedly drive it into the ground.

The Bottom Line: Gmail is about as good for business as Google Chat.