Google Wave Is Now Available To All

Google Wave:

I recall having to write to Google first before they invited me in the beta version of their Google Wave program. Basically, you either got invited by someone already signed up or you had no way of getting into their beta Google Wave program. When Google Wave The wave invitations were extremely popular when they first went out in fact some requests appeared on eBay auctions for bids of about $5,000.

I liked the idea of collaboration and being able to have several like minded people working on the same project in real time or at a time that suites the participants but have all the project info in one place be it video, audio, image or text.

Very soon though, the overall interest in Google Wave declined for many who first tried it due to slowness & luck of any permission controls. Twitter that only allows a few character updates won the popularity contest on this one becoming more of an everyday life thing for most.

This is a big company and it’s bounced back with opening the Wave to all that want it as of 18th May 2010 including Google Apps users. This will hopefully create yet another surge of excitement as Google has now got rid of the invitation system. So it looks as though the battle to win over all the sceptics is in full swing.

Google Wave Availability Announcement:

Lars Rasmussen, who’s considered a cofounder of the Google Wave project, was on hand at Google IO (19 – 20th May 2010 Moscone Centre, San Francisco) to break the availability news in front of a large audience. On the Google Wave Blog, Stephanie Hannon, a product manager wrote; “If you tried Google Wave out a while ago, and found it not quite ready for real use, now is a good time to come back for a second try.  Wave is much faster and much more stable than when we began the preview, and we have worked hard to make Wave easier to use.”

Specifying that for the curious among us, “For example, you can now get email notifications when waves change, easily navigate to unread parts of a wave, and remove participants added by mistake. We have also added permission management options and an extensions gallery.”

In my view, I believe Google Wave will find a big following though it may happen at a gradual pace than a stampede of sort. The main thing I see as a great improvement is the adding of permission management. The extensions gallery will no doubt open doors to those coders keen to develop apps etc. which will make Google Wave quite powerful. Since its still part of Google Labs, additional changes and refinements may be on the way based on user feedback.

Google Wave’s Online Marketing Potential:

For online marketers, this will open yet another channel for tapping into user groups that share the same niche interest and I believe wave projects will soon start to appear in the live search results on Google just like Twitter and other micro blogs currently do. I believe waves will gain high PR quicker than normal sites if niche targeted just like blogger.

My advise as always is to jump in while it’s still new and start building a following before many do the same. Since Google would like this project to succeed, I am sure they’ll look to help those using it as much as they can. Google Knol was exactly the same when it first launched and I am sure it still helps with link & PR building.

I am currently working on a project though for a while I was being limited by the need for people to first get invited into Good Wave before using it. With an allowance of a maximum of 25 invites, I had little luck of building a big following pronto within Google Wave without relying on those I invite to invite others. This niche marketing project is going to be my first test project for this new project management or collaboration platform – Exciting

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