Google Unveils Wave at I/O Conference

You all know that I get excited about new technologies so it should come as no surprise that I would tell you about Wave, Google’s new mega-application for online communication and collaboration that it unveiled at its developer conference last week.  It combines all of the great functions of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter into one slick application that also huge potential beyond social networking.

Key features:

Since Wave isn’t limited to one platform over another users can create a new Wave, or thread, and invite others who have profiles on other applications.  Real time updates allow participants to see character-by-character updates on their screen so that the conversation evolves much more naturally, like the way it does when you’re with friends at a restaurant or colleagues in an office.  A few features that stood out to me:

• Users can comment on specific questions in a Wave with an SMS-like response tool that you see on Facebook.
• Playback tool allows you to see how a conversation develops over time.
• Click-and-drag photos from desktop to Wave — shared access allows multiple users to name and comment photos in real time.

Trade show impact:

I’ve said it before here and it’s no secret that marketing departments are being asked to do more with less when it comes to trade shows, which often means that companies are sending in fewer people to events.  With Wave, one member of your team can attend a seminar and create a notes document that he or she can collaborate with the rest of the home team in real time.  And its eye-pleasing interface presents an opportunity for a clean, streamlined form of communication between workers without the use of messy folders or email chains.