Google Wave–a new communication and collaboration tool developed by Google–has certainly caused a lot of buzz in the past months. While it is still in pre-beta stage and access is limited by invitations, Google Wave clearly demonstrates it has the potential to change the way we work and communicate online. Those who can see the capabilities hidden behind the little bit clumsy interface (remember the development is still in early stages) know Google Wave is something to monitor closely. Those who do not “get it” on the other hand are clearly not the right audience for testing the beta version and will probably be very surprised once the technology is adopted by mainstream programmers and developers.
I believe Google Wave is a platform that will become very successful once enough people start using it. The key is to think of it as a platform on which other great things will be built on. Remember iPhone SDK? By giving away the tools to build iPhone applications for free, Apple AppStore has grown exponentially to the point where it now has over 100,000 iPhone applications. Google is on the right track to similar success.
Following Itai Boublil’s post, I decided to describe how I use Google Wave in my business.
Me and my team have been using Google Wave for over a month now. Ever since I saw the first demo of what it can do I knew Google Wave is the perfect tool for our internal communication. We design websites and marketing materials and most projects involve at least two or three people. I have structured my business so that everyone works from home. There is no central office therefore having a good communication channel is essential for us. Before Wave we handled things by email, instant messaging or phone which was a bit cumbersome at times.
Using Google Wave simplified our internal communication and increased productivity by quite a bit. No more bouncing emails back and forth, waiting for the other side to reply … it’s like email meets instant messaging on steroids.
We use Wave as a project management tool, work sheets, internal memo board, track of payments, to-do list, link exchange plus normal -. The savings are in productivity alone but this free tool also replaced our $400 project management system.
If you have a project or a work on a document which requires input from more than two people, give Google Wave a go. You might be surprised how quickly you get used to it and how easy it is to use.
Yes it is a bit rocky at times and the speed could be better, but considering how useful it is for us even now while Google Wave is still in it’s very early stages, I think it’s safe to say it’s really going to be a huge success and is certainly worth a try.
