The Immersion Continues: Google Wave
With the help of a former Radio Production teacher of mine, I received a Google
Submit Yourself to the Google
Wave invite yesterday. Add this to the Google Voice invite I received organically from Google last week and this has been a heck of a November. I have definitely found that my immersion into the Google Cloud has been getting deeper with each passing day.
I use Google Docs more than MS Office due to the mobile nature of being me. I am using Google Voice for a variety of purposes beyond the phenomenal Voicemail options. I am using GMail not only for my gmail account, but also for a variety of other accounts including those at my personal domains. All of my email, contacts and calendars are synced using Google Syncs push services for my iPhone.
And now, Wave. Though still in infancy, the hype is dying down a bit though is still very much earned. I have very few contacts on Wave, so it is still a glorified chat or IM client for me, but the potential is more than apparent. I look forward to adding contacts in the future as the expansion continues and using it for a variety of collaborative efforts. I can’t wait to see what developments come are due out in the future from this development team.
Seeing as research indicates that 18-24 year olds are using Facebook less and less for friendships and more for event planning and other coordination (here), I think Wave really does hold the potential to be a Facebook killer. Also, its live nature could poise it to be a Twitter killer with the right developments; especially since Google can pretty well monetize anything, an area where Twitter has failed thus far.
At times, it can be scary to know that most everything that comprises me is in a Google data center somewhere, just a crash away from devastation. But I’m pretty sure it will work out… Nonetheless, I continue to be impressed by Google and am actually considering ditching the iPhone for an android-based phone when upgrade time rolls around in late summer 2010. And thanks to Google Voice, I don’t even need to worry about losing my number if I switch carriers.