Microsoft just can’t seem to win these days.  Their huge roll out for 2009 complete with expensive television ads is an effort (Bing) designed to compete with Google’s oldest product.  Shortly thereafter, Google responds with a tool that may revolutionize business e-communication as we know it.

Google Wave is living up to its name by causing more than merely ripples in the blogosphere.  Unveiled at the 2009 Google I/O Developer Conference, the hour and 20 minute YouTube video has received over 2 million views and more than 4,400 ratings (overall five stars).  While not scheduled for release until later this year, Google presented the tool to a highly enthusiastic crowd of select developers and subsequently provided them with accounts to start playing with.  A number of APIs were developed, and Google hopes coders will take full advantage of them, creating a myriad of new tools and apps designed to utilize the power of Google Wave.  Bolstered by this supporting framework of related applications, Google will enjoy firm footing when they launch the tool worldwide.

Below are some of Google Wave’s key features and some insights on how they’ll impact the way you communicate online.

A Permanent Home for a Discussion
When your discussion “goes wave”, from that point forward, you’ll be able to instantly add participants and reference it from any other wave or point online.  Similar to an email thread, you’ll be able to see the history of a discussion, however Google Wave does so much more to group the history as well as notify participants of any updates.  Being Google, the built-in search function received a lot of attention.  As such, searching for waves is powerful, instantly updating the results as you type a query.  You don’t have to rely very heavily on your organization skills, and gone are the tedious days of sorting messages into proper folders.

Streamlined and Realtime Collaboration
Many of Google Wave’s features are forehead-slap-inducing; the kind where you’ll wonder why humanity has trudged along without them.

• Instant sharing and linking: You can add new participants to a wave simply by dragging them from the contact list into the wave itself.  Similarly, you can link to any other wave by dragging that wave from the list into the current wave.  It automatically creates a neat link at a point of your choosing formed with the title of the wave you’re linking to. Photos?  You guessed it; just drag and drop from your desktop.
• Inline comments: You’ve seen inline comments in Microsoft Outlook or some other email client.  These go further by neatly containing the statement along with the user’s avatar and a timestamp.  No more alternating colors.  It’s obvious who said what and when.
• Playback:  Big wow-factor here.  A person new to the wave can get caught up by viewing a post-by-post playback at their own speed.  That person can add comments to any point of the discussion contextually.
• Editing: Here’s a great way to disseminate meeting notes.  Post your notes as a wave.  Any person can edit the notes and their notations will be clearly identified.  If you have viewed the original message before, you’ll see any changes the next time you view the message. If you see a message for the first time that has multiple edits, you will be able to see who contributed to the edits, but won’t see the markups. To see those, use the playback feature. You’ll know who changed what and can select any version you want as the final and then send it on as the official version as a new wave.
• Instant messaging: This feature elicited some major applause at the conference.  You can see comments being posted to a wave as they’re being typed; backspaces and all.  This is an optional feature, but when enabled, eliminates having to stare at a “typing” status while the other party keys in their complete comment.  In fact, two people can update a wave at the same time and both participants will see each other’s updates as they’re being typed.
• Integration with blogging: Waves can be instantly added to a blog and future comments are synced with the wave.  Reach multiple audiences at once.  Even photo captions are synced.

Enhanced Communication Power Through Wave Extensions
It’s incredibly easy to embed and share a wide variety of online media within your waves:

• “Searchy” lets you do a quick Google search and instantly add results to your wave including destination links, images, videos, even maps.
• Twitter: Can install a “Twave” which is a wave of tweets. Posts within this portion of a wave will automatically post to Twitter.
• “Buggy” integrates a full featured bug tracking program with easy options to change assignees or comment on specific bugs using waves.
• Automatic language translation:  During the demo we saw a conversation between a French speaker and an English speaker being translated in real time. Wow.
• Forms and polls are native to waves and can be directly embedded. Add whatever fields you want and solicit information from your wave participants.
• “Linky” automatically creates links (google.com).  No need for “www” or “http://”

Mobile-ready on Day One
The team demonstrated interfaces for both the Android and iPhone operating systems.  You’ll be able to access your waves from anywhere without waiting for a separate app to be developed.

Many companies are accustomed to using some combination of email and instant messaging as part of their normal project communication.  The more savvy also utilize online collaboration/project management tools.  One thing’s for sure, the introduction of Google Wave will make them reevaluate their methods.  A strong reason they’ll be willing to do this is of course, the standard Google price of free.  For long discussions across multiple people, or even mini projects, a single wave could likely handle all related communication.  A big missing element, however, is the ability to manage tasks and assignments, but a third party app (if not an enhancement by Google) will likely surface relatively soon following launch.

In general, email’s dominance in corporate communications will quickly wane and a number of us won’t be too sad to see that.  Google Wave demonstrates that there truly is a better way to collaborate.  Get ready to rethink.

Interactive Industry News & Events, Social Media, User Interface Design, Web Project Management Google Wave, Social Media, User Interface Design, Web Project Management