A World of (Google) Wave

Google Wave is coming out really, really soon. And by that I mean that Google is releasing 100,000 invites on September 30th.

Now, Google Wave is supposed to be an amazing product. In fact, the hype was so large, that companies started trying to rip it off with quick releases of a imitation. You can even take a look at some of the products, Shareflow and PyGoWave.

But enough with these petty inconveniences. Most people just want to use the real McCoy. And while only a lucky few have a developer invite, (I count myself in this tally) anyone can get an email letting them know the second Google Wave is ready by entering their email here.

Now, on to the information. What is Google Wave? Well, Google Wave is basically a mash up of Gmail, Google Docs, Google Chat and Wikipedia. Described that way, Google Wave sounds like a flop. But taking a look at it from another perspective gives the service new hopes.

Unlike communication platforms like Twitter and Gmail, Google Wave can be hosted on your own servers. That means that even if Google’s servers take a hit and go down, your communications are still up. Another great thing about Wave is its collaboration features. With Wave, you can collaborate on projects and see other’s additions almost instantly.

Another small, but wonderful feature of Wave is the spell check. Unlike regular spellcheckers, Google Wave uses the information collected by billions of Google searches to guess what words you meant to say. For example, if I wrote the sentence “Mary hat a lidle lam,” Google would correctly assume that I meant to say “Mary had a little lamb.” This seemingly insignificant feature may pave the way for better spell checkers.

Mashable put out an article a while back on how Wave will change the web. I really liked two of the subjects it brought up. The article talked about commenting and forums for websites and blogs, a topic I think will hold true when Wave comes out. The other was about customer support.

This idea actually comes from a thread in the Google Wave development preview titled “What Will You Use it For?” It’s a remarkable discussion and brainstorming session over the potential of wave. One of the most fleshed-out ideas in the thread, though, is Wave for customer support. Here are some of the bullet-points for how Wave could be used in customer support:

– Sending trouble tickets
– Incident tracking can be a wave
– Call center analytics gadget
– Distribution list gadget
– Customer meta-data gadget
– Surveys can be a wave

Real-time customer support? Yeah, someone please build that.

Google Wave. The possible future of communications. The only way that Wave will be truly successful if there is widespread adoption of the platform.

What do you think is the future of Google Wave? Let us know in the comments!

Photo: tylerdurden1

Subscribe:     RSS | Email | Twitter