Personally, I don’t think Google Wave is going to revolutionise the world. Sure, Microsoft did manage to manipulate and monopolise the market 30-something years ago, but I don’t see Google doing that here. With 100,000 invitations criss-crossing the planet, maybe a further 900,000 humans will find a way to either catch a ride or jump on the band-wagon.
The new Google Wave communication tool is just that: A tool. For a lot of nerds, geeks, dweebs and IAA users, yeah, it will consolidate their online-chat-lives.
Created by two of the guys behind Google Maps with a small team in Sydney, the concept behind Google Wave is to “unify” communication on the web. It’s a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. It features the ability to replay conversations because it records the entire sequence of communication, character by character. Because of this, discussions are also live in Google Wave: you will see your friends type character-by-character.
But will become their only means of communication? That I doubt. History has proven that people love to be in multiple SocNet’s, it’s become a part of their staple-online-diet. From Facebook to MSN-Chat, Twitter to Plurk, everyone is somewhere online. Even if they are talking with the same people and talking about the same stuff on each site!
What I truly question is Google’s motives: Do they anticipate large revenue in advertising space? Should users be expecting to be charged for the experience? There is no doubt that the Google share price will double overnight, but I have no doubt it will stabilise very shortly after.
Yet I do look forward to seeing where the Google wave carries us. As with all internet phenomenon, there are eddies, whirlpools, tsunami’s and sink-holes with every new software and web release. I wonder how easy it will be to surf the Google wave?
STEPHENTREPRENEUR 
I think Google is just finding its feet in the developing trends of social networking. They’ve been late to every party but once having launched their product they’ve grown exponentially into clear leading ranks. Yahoo and MSN had search covered, then Google came along and took a huge chunk of that market. Free email was already a hit when Gmail was launched. Microsoft has had documents, spreadsheets, and presentations years ahead of Google Docs. So the trend continues. Google sees what people love then finds a way to improve what already works.
Google Wave looks to be the same again. People are already using a combination of social networking tools like Skype, IM, Twitter, and even project management tools. Google has seen how others have done it and have put together their own version. They have the finance and technological backing to make it better (or at least as good as) anything else currently available.
As for the financial aspect? Like most of what they provide I suspect the service itself will be free. Money comes from the opportunity to expand their advertising locations. Gmail gave us targeted advertising with our email messages. Imagine having similar adds running alongside our instant messengers?
But, for the full results, we’ll just have to wait and see what Google does with its new Wave. :-)
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Hello Rebecca!
Your comment pretty much covers it all, and I absolutely agree …. we’ll all have to wait and see. Thanks for the quick response Rebecca, it is much appreciated!
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new information to me, so thankyou! great info, i will be following.
cheers
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