Last night I received my Google Wave invitation. The first thing that I did was to use my 8 invitations to give my co-workers and friends a look at it too. So I hope to be able to put it to some good use in the coming weeks as we finish our strategic planning for 2010 for Informz.
My first thoughts on using Google Wave is that I could definitely see small groups getting a great deal of use out of it. Whether they are a project team, a group of software developers, a marketing department, etc. it has some nice features.
Its definitely not an email or IM or closed social network replacement, though.
- For IM: Its a bit too "clunky" for your typical IM type conversations. You want something that is smooth. Although I really liked seeing what was being typed as it was typed. That definitely has the power of being dangerous, though...
- For Email: Email as we use it today is completely open. You can email anyone and anyone can email you. This of course has positives and negatives that we all live with. Wave is a closed system for a small group.
- For Closed Social Networks: Wave gives each person equal rights and privileges. For example, each person can erase anyone's post. Wave keeps a complete history of the conversation so if you went back you could see who erased it. But would people look?
In its current form using the Google Wave interface the technology is a nice step forward into combining IM, email and groupware but its not game changing.
I think the big step forward will be in integrating Wave technology into applications that we use today in solo mode so that small groups can easily work on documents together.
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