Really good article from Eric Schonfeld at TechCrunch. He theorizes that maybe the reason Google pushed Buzz out the door early, was to use it as leverage with Twitter.  Because Google wants to glom onto Twitter. Another great reason, quoting now, “links passed through social sharing are beginning to rival search as a primary driver of traffic for many sites. Part of Google’s prowess stems from the fact that it is the largest referrer of traffic to many other Websites. It doesn’t want to lose that status to social sharing streams such as Facebook or Twitter.”

Bingo.