Remember when you had a cell phone, a Palm device, and an MP3 player. Guys, ‘fess up, you wish it was acceptable for everyone to carry a purse. I know my pockets were so full with gadgets that I had to buy a thinner wallet, trim my keyring down to two keys, and wear cargo pants whenever I could. Then these smartphones came out and all-in-one devices became the norm. I could wear normal pants with only two pockets again, something that allowed me to fit in at weddings.
That’s what Google Wave will do for us soon when it comes to communication applications. With the plethora of ways to communicate, juggling all these tools just doesn’t make sense for most of us.
Back in May, Google Wave was introduced to a group of developers at the 2009 Google I/O Developer Conference. Although there was a short burst of hype, people who heard of it were really just waiting until it was ready for prime time before getting all giddy over it. Fast forward to yesterday. I was on Blake Waddill’s Props Blog dot Com and his write up on Google Wave reminded me that this product is getting real close to market.
Is Google Wave the next BIG thing? I think so. Watch the video and judge for yourself.
People who know me already think I’m a Google fanboy. But my unbiased opinion (or at least my best stab at objectivity) is that Google Wave really does take communication to a new level. If creating a synergy between email, instant messaging, social networking, and file and photo sharing doesn’t sound impressive, then you just need to take off the Google-hater cap and try to be honest with yourself. The demo in the video shows how common everyday problems with email are solved with Google Wave. I mean, email looks so 1960’s compared to this! Then again, as Lars Rasmussen reminds us on the video, email was developed in the 1960’s.
And the best part of Google Wave isn’t even a feature; it’s the fact that it’s open source! That means it’s a free tool. It also means there will be third party developers creating plenty of apps and add-ons for our specific needs, like for your iPhone.
Questions still remain. Will users adopt new “email” technology? Is it too advanced for the general masses? Will browsers (i.e. IE, Firefox and Safari) find ways to make it hard for it to work? How will this work on mobile devices? Will it be secure?
Personally, I love innovation. I love the creativity that the Google think tank has, especially Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the brothers who created Google Maps and are responsible for Google Wave. I love the way Google is willing to jump ahead with crazy technological advances by placing no limitations on what’s possible.
I believe Google Wave will also revolutionize blogging. Exactly how I’m not certain yet. Google didn’t buy blogger.com just to ignore 200,000,000 blogs (and growing by the minute). Furthermore, the mass messaging possibilities already seem endless with Google Wave. We live in a time when things change so fast that it’s hard to keep up so we have to be pickier about which tools to adopt. I’m pretty sure Google Wave isn’t going to be the one left out of many of our toolboxes. Plus, I won’t need to carry around the equivalent of an online purse!










I am a business professional
with an entrepreneurial spirit. Although I have an MBA and managed websites and IT departments
for several Fortune 500 companies ...
Gabe,
Google Wave is going to be crazy when it is released. Right now in this testing stage we can’t even really start to see the power because there aren’t a million people writing gadgets for it and there aren’t as many users to share with… I can’t wait for this product to go public. I am dying to try it out. I’m just worried about how many of my friends will have it.
Thanks for the link
I think it’s really going to blow the blogging community out of the water!
Google Wave is pretty exciting. I just hope Google doesn’t release it with a beta tag like they did with Gmail and other projects. People like us will use it anyway but for the general population to switch over, it’s going to have demonstrate that Google Wave can really deliver in terms of speed, security, and usability.
Really interesting stuff… Thanks for posting the video demo. I’m sooo excited for this to come out. I help people with digital organization (as well as physical/spatial) and so many have issues with 4 different e-mails, 2 blogs, and friends spread among social networking sites. It would be fabulous to have it all integrated and in one place. I’m pumped!
Excellent piece of work! Thank you for all the information and keep it up! I will save this page and will read it again to understand it better.
I got my Google wave license and loving it.. though missing seeing all of my friends there.. I wish every one get invite soon..so that I can add them on my Google wave account..
Wave is pre-alpha, not even beta, so apps are limited to developers. I should have my developers account shortly, and will poke around with blog applications.
Dave, keep us posted. If you do a review on it, let me know so I can point to it!
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