Google Wave is a new model of communication and collaboration on the Internet. It is currently being launched and I suspect that it will change the way bloggers write their blogs, and the way that blog readers read the content and interact with the blogger.
What is the Google Wave?
- Real Time!
- Mobile!
- Social!
Facebook does it already. Twitter does it better. Friendfeed connects it all the best. But I suspect that Google Wave will be on another level!
Google Wave is a browser-based app and a place where you can store all your personal content from conversations, emails, Twitter messages, research, pictures, videos and more. I believe it will revolutionize the way people connect, communicate, collaborate and share information with other people online.
Google Wave is an aggregation point. It aims to be the personal hub and combines all our instant messaging, all our emailing, Twittering and other ways we interact and communicate with our existing contacts together. Not only does it combine it all, it also adds a load of functionality on top of it.
All in one, real-time and anywhere you go
Google wants the users to be able to use the Wave across all sites on the Internet. Google Wave will sweep up all your conversations online into a cloud. All in one and all in your browser, all real-time and all anywhere you go!
Some of the features that were presented at the introduction of Google Wave are:
- Respond to a particular sentence within an email, not just to the email as a whole
- Simply start typing and your friend will see words as you enter them and vice versa
- “Playback” feature – rewind to see what has happened in the past and watch how it progressed through the changes
- Live group collaboration – edit things Wiki-style
- Bloggy Embeddability - Embed waves on any blog or website
- Twave Twitter Client – Completely integrated with Twitter. Get tweets, write tweets, scan Twitter for your keywords
- Drag and drop files to share
- Advanced spell checker that not only looks through a dictionary for spelling, but also corrects the grammar by looking at the context of the sentence
How could the Wave affect the blogging world?
- Your content will be exported into a wave via your RSS feed
Imagine that your article gets exported into a Google Wave in real-time, as soon as you have published it. People then read it via Google Wave only. This is done today with RSS feed and RSS readers. But the Wave will allow your readers to add their tips, their experiences and other information directly into your post.
- Your content will become a public domain
Looking on this from a larger perspective, this would mean that your content will be about ideas. Share your content in hope of inspiring the readers. The content will become the public domain and the readers will take your post to another level and give it a new life by editing and adding to it.
- Readers to interact on a Wave and not on your post
The above will result in people also interacting with your content and with each other by commenting and editing the wave instead of going directly to your blog. Something similar is already happening on FriendFeed but FriendFeed is very small at the moment. Google Wave will have many users and that will influence your blog.
- Advertising to be integrated into the content
When your blog and your content becomes decentralized it will be more about ideas and thoughts. It will be up to the readers to decide how and where to read your content and in what format. That means that less people will read your content directly via your blog. And this means less page views and less space for banner ads. There will be more space for sponsored content to be integrated into the post like affiliate programs, your own product or sponsored posts.
What should WordPress do to get synergy with the Wave?
- Integration with the Wave
It is good to know that WordPress is on it already. Recently they have released the P2 live group blogging theme and there will definitely be a lot of stuff coming out for Google Wave from WordPress and other WordPress plugin developers. Plugins that integrate your blog content into Google Waves and plugins that integrate Google Wave content into your blog post.
- Live blogging / commenting must be enabled
Make live blogging / live commenting possible. Imagine that as soon as I start writing a blog post it gets visible on the blog. Imagine readers being able to follow a post getting written letter by letter in real-time. Imagine readers adding their own input and ideas into the post live while the blogger is writing it.
What can bloggers do to be prepared for the wave?
- Build a community around your blog
Your blogging brand will be even more important than before. You need to stand for something, you need to have something unique and you need to be personal. This way you will create a community around your blog content. This way you will build a fan base. And your fan base will stick with you no matter where they read your content.
- Connect with your audience via Google Apps
All Google apps are well integrated with each other. When you write an email to someone with a GMail account, that person is automatically added to your GTalk instant messenger account. Same with for example the friends you have on your YouTube channel.
Now imagine that you can be one step ahead of many bloggers as soon as the Google Wave is launched. You can do that by connecting with your audience via Google tools already today. Then at the launch of Google Wave you will have many connections on Google and your blog will be ready and thriving, riding the wave while your competitors will have to start from scratch.
- Add Google Friend Connect
For this purpose I have now added Google Friend Connect community to my blog sidebar. I will experiment with this in the upcoming weeks to find the best solution / exposure for it. Please join it and connect with me and with other bloggers that are reading my blog.
I have also customized my HowToMakeMyBlog YouTube channel and I plan to add my videos there in the future.
Google Wave Developer Preview
If you want more info about the Google Wave, see the developer preview video below:
Watch out – your readers will soon be riding the wave, and if you want to compete you would have to ride it too!
Am I onto something or?
What do you think? Am I onto something here or is Google Wave not something you expect to influence the blogging world too much?
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Very interested to see how Google Friend Connect works out for you. Will be launching a new site for a community soon and am looking at options to make it more social
Thanks for all the comments!
@Tim Taylor @Josh – It seems that Google is taking the Friend Connect serious. They are regularly adding new widgets and ways it can make a site interactive. And I suspect when the wave comes, it will become much more important tool to get a community together.
@Miguel Wickert – Yeah, is sounds exciting to me too. Live blogging with readers contributing live to the post as well.
@Marshall – Definitely. The Wave sounds like the start to the “Cloud” computing people have been talking about. Everything online, no more OS etc.
Makro,
Ye Yes, you’re on to something. I don’t know how many bloggers will like idea of people seeing their work before completion. For me, I don’t mind as it all sounds exciting. Google friend connect, I see, I’ll join in but haven’t added one to my site’s side bar, at least not yet. Less clutter. I too have a youtube channel, I subscribed to your feed. Also, never heard of P2 before? Interesting stuff man.
You’re right about connecting via google apps. Be sure to properly setup a Google profile account. That’s a good point about less page views and money for those that depend on high amounts of traffic for income. I know some folks won’t like that. Thanks for sharing,
-Mig
I agree, you are onto something. I’m digesting this Google Wave video right now, everything looks pretty neat so far!
Will be interested to see how friend connect works out for you.. I’ve seen it about the place and am toying with the concept of adding this to my blog also…
I think Google Wave will be awesome. Hopefully developers will integrate Google Wave into other applications that are on the web so everything will be connected and easy to maintain. Greg Ellison
Great analysis of Google Wave. I’ve been thinking lately that Google is going to come up with a way to massively connect everyone on the internet like Twitter did, and along comes Wave. Exciting to see all the new new web traffic sources that pop up.
Can’t wait to see Google Wave rockin’ on. I thinks it will be the next generation of social networking websites.
@Greg Ellison: The developer API was covered briefly in the video, but I don’t think it will be necessary. Considering that Google Wave will unify discussion board, email inbox, rss feed reader, photo sharing utility, and instant messenger into a single web application, I’m going to simply embed it in a full-screen iframe on my site. I expect the desktop version to eliminate my reliance on web browsers, as well. As I see it, Google Wave will make computers a thing of the past.
@Marko: Svetlana Gladkova wrote: “[Most] people don’t need any new complex web application to replace a few of the things they currently do on their desktops.” [Source: http://profy.com/2009/05/29/imagine-that-wave-does-not-come-from-google/
I tend to agree with her sentiment. However, having joined FriendFeed for the first time today after reading about it '[connecting] all the best’ per your article (via stand-alone feed reader), my unwavering ties to the desktop OS may be showing.
Great analysis of google wave bro.
RT for ya..
An interesting read for sure. It is exciting to know that something that could revoloutionise the web yet again is just around the corner. GWave is going to empower a lot more people online than ever before.
I’m initially skeptical, for hive mind/ big brotherish reasons. Maybe just a little too much integration? Are my emails going to be visible to everyone as I type them too? Sheesh…. I don’t think I’d want my posts to be visible already in “preview” as I start writing them…. that’s what “preview” is for – before you publish! I kind of think Google just wants to maintain its “cutting edge” reputation, you know, that no one else can outdo them. Not sure all the social thought has gone into this…. I guess I’d have to see just what all they’re trying to integrate.
Thanks for all the comments!
@MoneyEnergy @Adam – According to what they have shown in the video presentation you will be able to “allow” specific people to join your wave. So in the end it will be up to you if you’re making your stuff available to public or not.
@Lisis – It will be a nice challenge to have your work so open for everyone to take a look at, comment on, suggest stuff to etc.
@Stuart – True. I hope businesses soon realize how much more productive something like GMail would be for their workers.
I think you are completely right about this, and it scares me a little. Not because of “Big Brother” type fears, but because of my own abilities… will I be able to stay sufficiently ahead of the curve to avoid falling by the wayside? I took to twitter fairly easily, so I’m hoping Wave will be as natural a transition for me. But I’m not really the techie type, so I’ve got my fingers crossed.
I’ll definitely try it though… I think it’s inevitable. Thanks for another great post!!!!
Huge amounts of hype recently regarding wave obviously, the problem is the majority of businesses do not use googlemail, googletalk or anything like it. Yes it may be big in the freelance / net world but in the real world people use their own domains and view their emails in a third party app such as outlook etc.
So unless your mainly a business to consumer seller, and that consumer has googlemail (when most still have hotmail or yahoo) then I really can’t see it taking off in a business sense in the beginning.
Awesome post Marko. Google Wave really does sound like the future of the web that we’ve been constantly hearing about but not really seeing.
Not sure how much of it will be useful though. Live blogging sounds great for covering live events (think sports, presidential debates, concerts) but for reference/tutorial type posts it might be a bit weird. A lot of my posts start differently from how they end so it might be a negative to show the unfinished product in its raw state (especially because I often start drafts and come back to them later).
Also, a bit confused but does the public domain aspect mean our emails become public? Obviously, a lot of of people would have issues with that one.
Still, it sounds very, very exciting and you’ve captured the why of that excitement perfectly here. Can’t wait to try out Google Wave personally.
Thanks for the warning. Let’s start with the easy part. Sometimes my posts do flow fully completed all at once – but not most of the time. I don’t know about anyone else but most posts get continually improved and rewritten until they’re published AFTER I am done creating them. Writing live is definitely not a positive for me.
Now let’s talk about the major issues with Google’s plans. We can be thankful they tipped their hand so maybe we can do something about it. When Google controls all content they control US too. Think Borg here.
Google will control who finds you, who visits you – and ideally from their point of view – your readers won’t visit you at all! They’ll stay on Google (just like AOL, MSN and others once tried to keep their users on their sites). [We'll ignore for the moment that Google pretty much already does that due to their near monopoly on organic and paid search.]
If your readers don’t visit you monetization goes out the window. This is a great plan to try to eliminate or control any independent thinkers and those who do not choose to play the Corporate game or have a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke).
Now would be the best time for the Open Source community to provide us everything we need that is NOT Google-ized including an easy way to move all our WordPress blogs onto a non-Google-ized option. WordPress could do that but if they don’t I sincerely hope someone else steps up to the task.
@GrowMap – Great comment! That certainly seems to be their goal, to keep us as long as possible on Google and on their apps. But they do hold a major share of all the search online, and with Gmail, Google Reader etc their influence is just increasing and I do not seem to find anyone who can compete really.
Great post Marko, your idea about getting ahead with FriendConnect really got me thinking. I have set it up on my own blog in the sidebar, and am going to look at how it will improve my community, and prepare me for Wave.
Thanks for the write up Marko, I probably never would have went for it if you weren’t so convincing. :p
Hello Marko,
We all have important choices to make. While it is NOT simple to decide not to use Microsoft and go with Ubuntu or another Unix based system it is possible. I looked for a long time for a search engine better than Google and finally found it in DuckDuckGo. I love WordPress but if they sell out to Google I’ll move to something else.
I have a unique background that has allowed me to see a much larger picture than most can observe for themselves. I’ve written recently about the dangers of relying on ppc and organic traffic from Google and how easy it is for Google to destroy small businesses at their whim the same way Wal-Mart destroyed the businesses in towns across America.
When America was thriving there were careers with full benefits, retirement employees did not have to contribute to and health care for life without cost. Those employees had disposable incomes that benefited their communities. When those incomes got spent at Wal-Mart instead other corporations cut wages so they could compete and now few have prosperity. Was it not obvious that when most made less they would have less to spend long before we arrived where we are today?
When we buy products because they are cheap we need to ask ourselves WHY they cost so little. Whose child and slave labor in sweatshops in some other country are we benefiting from and would we want our own families taken advantage of in that way?
Every time we decide to support multi-national corporations instead of small businesses we reduce prosperity for all. History has always warned us of the dangers of monopolies because they take away our choices. If we want to preserve our freedom we need to think about the futures our decisions are creating.
I have linked a post I wrote some time ago about When Free is NOT Free to this comment. The reason most don’t see competitors for Google is because they are offering valuable products “for free” and few feel they can afford to give away what they create. That is what Open Source is all about. Google products are NOT free – we are trading our privacy, our prosperity and our freedom for them. (Read that post for more details.)
By the time we can look back and ask ourselves whether it was worth it it will be too late. More of us really have to look wider and further into the future and see the obvious path we are on while there is still time to change it.
@Alex – I just joined your site. For me it is still about experimenting with it, to see if it is useful to anyone / anything. I may decide to remove it, or to keep it as it is or to add even more of its features. At least I would be able to write a useful post on GFC at some point with my thoughts on it.
@GrowMap – I tweeted this link yesterday http://www.storyofstuff.com. It really shows some of the stuff you are talking about, about what happens when we support all these big companies. Google kind of has a monopoly on the traffic I get from search engines and I try to experiment with stuff that I think might improve my Google rankings. I still have Twitter / Stumble / RSS etc. in case that Google suddenly decides to change something but I will do what I think might improve my chances in the future as I think this Wave will be big when it gets released.
Marko,
oh yeah, the story of stuff was something else.
It’s a neat video to help get folks thinking. Again, enjoyed the write up man, thanks for sharing and putting the effort in writing this piece. Also, how else might Wordpress change in light of the various social media trends and success? I know about buddy press, could do be more?
-Mig
Great post!
I’m looking forward to riding this wave although I’m still trying to wrap my head around it…watching the video now to help fill in the blanks.
This will be a very interesting product Google is putting out. We will have to wait and see how it holds up against Twitter even though I’m sure Google doesn’t want it to be referred to Twitter at all.
You're right. Google has the POTENTIAL to make this product revilutionary for web browsing. If Google has a big enough “grand opening”/release of the product then it will be popular. However, many people are only just catching on to Twitter and Facebook, etc. So, it's not actually the best time for Google(strategically) to release “THE WAVE.” If they wait, then people will be bored of facebook and twitter and will be looking for something new. Google's indset is that some other company will beat them to the punch, which is very possible.
I’ve been pondering the same thing since May – how will Google Wave impact my blogs? I’m anxious to see what happens. I’m already trying to think of a few interesting ways to use it in the future. It’ll probably be a while before it’s completely and publicly launched – so we have until then to figure it out.
Oh, and I forgot to say – you’ve got some good ideas there!
It sure will have an impact, but the impact will not be so enormous, especially not in the first few months. Two quotes regarding predicted impact I like and reuse often are two of the NYT. It shows that, although it are great products, the impact is most often overrated:
New York Times March 22 1876
… Thus the telephone, by bringing music and ministries into every home, will empty the concert-halls and the churches …
New York Times November 7 1877
… The telephone was justly regarded as an ingenious invention when it was first brought before the public, but it is destined to be entirely eclipsed by the new invention of the phonograph. The former transmitted sound. The latter bottles it up for future use …