swept up in the wave

what captivated me most in the last week was google's announcement of wave, their new communication and collaboration tool/platform (bing not even close). yes, i may be a little late to the blogosphere in talking about this, but a) i like to read a lot about something i'm posting and b) i'm not a breaking news blog, so i have no imperative in that regard.

i don't fawn over new software/platforms/apps/what-have-you much, but wave was different, it really struck a chord. it is just so radical, unexpected and a shift from the known and norm that it gripped me like darth vader's force choke.

you need to watch this video to get the full jist of what wave is all about. it's a big time investment, but you really get why it's a game changer. you'll really think about just how flawed our current communication tools are and question why we continue to use them.



i love everything about wave and what it supposes as the future of communicating and collaborating. but what is most interesting to me is that this is the dashboard to your life. this is the single source console to manage all your communication streams that i have been wanting for some time. i love all the different tools out there that are ideal for their special area, but i don't like managing so many accounts and tending to each one in a different interface or sharing each in different ways.

wave solves this, and solves it well. the most exciting part, though, is yet to come. now that it is in the hands of 3rd party developers, they are the ones who will truly make wave shine. but the promise of the framework is disruptive enough.

with my marketing hat on, within wave, there was talk of robots, and there is a lot of promise there. tech blog mashable had a great overview feature that talked a bit about robots. this is the social embedding & conversation embedding that i think everyone was promised, but hasn't happened yet. this is a really powerful proposition.

let me throw out a few examples to illustrate. say i'm organizing a trip to the cottage. within the wave is talk of supplies. any of the companies who make those supplies or retailers who sell them can access that and provide anything from suggestions, to price points, to locations, to coupons, to did-you-also-think-of messages. another easy one is travel companies and airlines embedding into a conversation about an upcoming trip providing all the necessary information for you to plan collaboratively. there's a lot more opportunities for a lot more advertisers.

to marketers, robots will be the new iphone application.