Macgasm

According to Google, a wave…

…is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Really…what is Google Wave?

To me, Google Wave is many things.  For instance, it can be used for meetings. You can use it for team meetings or a brainstorming session or use it to throw around ideas.  Sometimes these types of sessions are relegated to email.  You know those “brainstorming” email threads, where someone brings up an idea and others chime in, before you know it, you end up with dozens of emails scattered throughout your inbox.  Who wants to go back and read them?  Not many people would.  So, in the end, you most likely end up losing some great ideas.  In addition, you end up losing the passion of the thread.  Well, imagine that same thread on Google Wave.

Someone brings up an excellent idea, and instead of emailing back and forth, your team hops on Google Wave, creates a new Wave around this excellent idea. In real-time, everyone contributes their 2 cents, and in real-time everyone else can see it. That’s right, you can see posts unfold in the Wave in real time. By the way, you can copy images into a Wave to visually get your point across.  How about a video clip or a spreadsheet?  Yes, Wave can handle that as well.

At the end of the Wave, team members can return to the Wave and replay it from any point. This would be perfect for team members that were not present.  They could catch up!

So what’s the advantage of having the aforementioned meet-up on Google Wave instead of email?  Well, it’s all there.  All your input, that is.  It is available to be shared and replayed.  It’s not scattered throughout your inbox.  You could search different points of a Wave to find any piece of information.

Is that it?  No way!  Google Wave gives you so much more.  You can video chat.  So let’s say the team leader decides he wants to have a face to face meeting.  Instead of running to a conference room, you could start a video conference right in the Wave.

Google Wave also has robots.  They are little apps with specific functions.  For instance, someone demoed the Wolfram Alpha robot.  It was amazing.  Imagine being in a meeting and you needed to know Apple’s market cap. You’d type the following:

[market cap Apple]

Boom!  The results are returned right in the Wave for everyone to see.  A valuable piece of information was just added to the meeting without the need for someone to excuse themselves while they checked a website or a mobile phone.  Everyone’s attention remains focused on the meeting.

Are you starting to see the potential of Google Wave yet?  The potential for professional users is tremendous.  But what about for personal use?  Google Wave just isn’t for meetings. You can have fun too.  Hop over to the public waves and check out what others are doing.  Join a game, share photos, video chat, interact!

There’s no doubt, for me, that Google Wave is the future.  It will become the ultimate way to communicate and collaborate.  Right now, FaceBook and Twitter are some of the top websites for social interaction.  However, I believe that Google Wave will surpass both of them.  The level of interaction is much more intimate and immediate.

Google Wave is currently in Preview mode right now.  To try it out, you’ll need to sign up for an invite.

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