“Start conversations about the things you find interesting. Share updates, photos, videos and more with your friends.”

It looks like Google Gmail is looking to get in on the social networking act with the addition of Buzz. A number of social features have found their way into Gmail recently including chat, task management, translation, and social media previews and Buzz brings together a number of features to form a new social networking interface.

Some of the key features of the Buzz enhancement include no setup, auto-follow, photo friendly (with auto thumbnails), import information from Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, and Google Reader, fast sharing both publicly and privately, and integration into the Gmail inbox including instant updates. How this fits into the Google Wave strategy is as yet unclear.

Buzz works on mobile phones too, it should appear in your Gmail account very soon (if you have one!) – so keep a lookout for something a little bit different.

To learn more visit Google Buzz.