Tsunami Warning: Google Wave, will it replace email?

There are a number of questions that have been raised about Google Wave. Will it replace email? Twitter?  How will it impact businesses? Advertising agencies?

E-mail is the most popular way people communicate online, yet it was invented 40 years ago! Google says it developed Wave to answer the question, “What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?”

Everyone uses email, instant messaging and live chatrooms online now, but Google Wave will be able to tie those forms of communications together plus  utilize established social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Google Wave has the potential to be another revolutionary communications tool that greatly impacts the advertising industry, content marketing and ad agency new business.

On September 30th, Google will start sending out about 100,000 invites for the next version of Google Wave.  Ad agencies will need to be prepared to get up to speed with it quickly.  This will be one of those products that you have to experience first hand to understand it and use your marketing mind to explore its potential for your agency and clients. .

Here are some additional features of Google Wave:

  • Wave participants can share and edit documents at the same time and use waves to track and complete projects without ever having to set foot in the same office
  • Participants can also have faster conversations than they can by waiting for e-mailed replies
  • Waves will come with a handy robot called Rosy, which can translate your typing, into 40 different languages, allowing you to communicate in real time with almost anyone around the world
  • It includes a smarter spell checker as well as a link checker
  • The ability to drag and drop files, photos, videos, etc. even from your desk-top
  • There isn’t much of a question that the Wave will be a great project management tool and create greater efficiencies in internal and external communications
  • Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process
  • A playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when
  • It is embeddable, and can push wave content to a blog or website
  • You can turn a Wave into your own eBay
  • Allows for collaboration on a Google map to plan events
  • Wave participants can rate and review items – then it will show you a tally of the results
  • Google Wave will be left an open source project to encourage the development of improved extensions from third parties which will greatly accelerate its usefulness for a wide variety of applications

Will Google Wave have an impact on ad agencies? It’s too soon to say, but it certainly has the potential to be the next big wave to further transform communications and user generated content.

I am very interested in Google Wave’s potential as a tool for ad agency new business and managing an agency’s new business program. I look forward to sharing my evaluations from a new business prospective soon.

To sign-up for the early version fill out this form at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/

Additional, helpful information is found at the Google Wave Blog: http://www.googlewaveblogger.com

Mashable’s Ben Parr: Google Wave: A Complete Guide

Latest update and insights from Kate Loveys’ article: With a Wave, Google aims to conquer the network:

  • Google last night invited 100,000 people to become the first users of its latest internet tool which aims to rival email, Twitter and Facebook.
  • Google Wave allows a limitless number of internet users anywhere in the world to have instant conversations and share files.
  • The service combines aspects of email, instant messaging, social networking and web chat and is aimed at friends catching up with one another and business partners sharing documents.
  • Among suggested uses for Google Wave are organising trips, laboratory record-keeping and journalism. Users can join a wave – a group of web users – to have a discussion or share photos or documents.
  • Everyone in the wave can see what other users are typing and any document placed into the wave can be accessed by all the users at the same time.
  • In what sounds like a recipe for chaos, colleagues can work on the same document at the same time, seeing every change being made to the document as it is made.
  • Among suggested uses for Google Wave are organising trips, laboratory record-keeping and journalism.

 

About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

Comments

  1. I’m very excited about the release of Wave as well. As an online marketer I too feel we will need to be on top of this technology in order to offer our clients an entirely new set of online marketing and communication strategies.

    The internal project workflow functionality is one amazing aspect of Wave but imagine what brands will be able to do publicly – i.e. the Pepsi Wave or the Starbucks’ Wave.

    A customizable public web space where 10’s of thousands of people could interact with the brand and more importantly with each other in real time by utilizing a series of custom gadgets and robots. This, combined with the viral aspect via the Embeded Wave component and now we are talking about limitless applications – AN ONLINE MARKETER’S DREAM!

    http://twitter.com/erikg1

  2. I also feel excited about Wave.

    One thing that puzzle me so… If we look at email, Yahoo group … nothing really prevented people to build social networks before social networks existed.

    Email could have been the trigger for the community wave ;-). What really happend is that Corporations tool over email (most people have their business mail as primary email) making email the world of inside (I know people send email outside too but the control of the email channel is the Employer) and opening a free space for the Facebook and the like.

    Facebook and other are progressively taking over a significant “share of time”, even for employees. So, what will happend to Google Wave ?

    A platform for Corp to adopt or a weapon to move back emails in the hand and control of employee.

    Best

  3. I’ve been trying to imagine, from an ordinary user’s point of view, what things might be like if Wave is the success that it wants to be

    waverider.wordpress.com

  4. I’m incredibly excited about Wave. There are many blogs online bashing it, claiming it will “never replace facebook” etc. But it’s evident that these comments and posts are from uneducated facebook fanboys!

    One of the most exciting features; the fact that below this comment box is a checkbox to Notify me of follow-up comments by EMAIL. If Waves take off, this won’t be needed, and these replies can be integrated into Waves. We can all check our comments and replies from a single client, and reply directly from them. No more would we need to favourite every story we reply to, or have tons of emails every time someone comments.

    We’d have 1 wave for this story. It’d just be bold should there be a new reply.

    I think the possibilities of Waves (and not just Google’s thanks to their “federation” integration) is endless and something the entire communication industry, businesses and individuals, should really be looking forward to!!!

  5. Outstanding site, I actually found it to be helpful. I’m looking forward to coming back again to ascertain what’s new.

  6. I think the possibilities of Waves (and not just Google’s thanks to their “federation” integration) is endless and something the entire communication industry, businesses and individuals, should really be looking forward to

  7. I am writing a paper on romoba vacuum cleaners and I found this posting to be extremely very helpful and informative. Thank you.

%d bloggers like this: