I found that Yahoo had a Buzz service, and it's been around a least for two years:
http://buzz.yahoo.com/
HN first report: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124473
Didn't they say anything about when Google launched the same name service?
ps: off course there are other buzzes out there:
http://www.buzzthegame.com/
http://buzz.com/