Google Wave

A new and strikingly different idea has once again been proposed by the most innovative company in the web. Google wave is not just some new E - Mail service, it is much more than that. It essentially represents a new way to share content within the internet. It is collaborative and live, and as Jeff Jarvis argues " it is a new way to make news".

Some quick background information before I elaborate on my thesis presented above. Wave is still in development, but Google is said to launch what they call their new "E-Mail service" fairly soon.  Wave esentially represents some combination of E-Mail, chat, wikipedia and a blog. It allows you to invite others to a conversation by simply clicking on them in your contact list, reference to different sources on the web (blogging and addimg mini feeds), upload photos, videos or office documents and even to play a chess game with your friends that you are interacting with. If you invite someone over for dinner, you can easily attach Google Maps and a road description to your E-Mail, which makes it much more convenient for your guest. 

Contrary to previous Google products, Wave seems to be fairly open for other developers, enabling Google to become even more intertwined in the web. 

As mentioned above, I see much more in this revolutionary concept than just an E-Mail service. Imagine a team of reporters - together with witnesses on the scene - able to contribute photos and news to the same Wave (formerly known as a story or a page). One can write up what is known; a witness can add facts from the scene and photos; an editor or reader can ask questions. And it is all contained under a single address - a permalink for the story - that is constantly updated from a collaborative team. In the case for Focus online example, the final decision as to what eventually appears on the site could still be with the journalist in charge of the article. Yet, inlcuding others in the story could make the news so much more interesting and worthwile, with absolutely no increase in costs. 

At this part I'd like to quote Jarvis again, as he very aptly describes the whole process:

"Wave takes this to the next level. It combines the notions of a process as people add and subtract and update; it has the benefit of a wiki - a snapshot of current knowledge; it can be live; it can feed a blog page with the latest; it can feed Twitter with updates; it is itself the collaborative tool that lets participants question each other.

Wave isn’t just the email we’d invent if email were invented today, as was Google’s goal. Wave is what news can be if we invent it today, as we must.

Wave is the new news."

As convincing as this new approach may be, two immediate problems are occuring to me instantly. Are we to implement such a new approach within a news portal such as Focus Online,  you do need an incredibly skilful and advanced set of programmers to perform such a task. Google's chief developer himself, Lars Rasmussen (developer of Google Maps and Google Earth), has been put in charge for this project. It is evident that Burda does not have the adequate staff to design such a new technology.

Secondly it has been obvious numerous times that the traditional German customer is much slower to adapt to new formats and models. Thus, even if the technology would be integrated successfully within the website, it is questionable whether it would appeal to people.

Yet I do believe that this particular new way to make news has the potential to reform and reshape the way that news websites are being displayed on the internet, and it would be amazing to see Focus Online at the forefront of this development. 

Will get back soon,

J

First entry

Hi People,

Sittin in 92 Atherton Avenue right now. Just came back from the Maker Faire. Picked up Esther Dyson this morning who spoke about her experiences in the astronaut training. Really interesting and worthwile. Her remarks about Google and Bing and the resulting dynamics for the market were also very thought provoking; looks like Bing is proving to be just another classic Microsoft model, i.e. reducing the competition within the industry, by hosting search and content on their website simultaneously (first time a search engine is explicitly including content on the site).. gonna be interesting to see how Google and the affected retailers (i.e. holiday check) will be reacting to it... If Microsoft manages to gain significantly in market share ( 8 per cent at the moment, Google around 70, Yahoo at 10), this could become a real problem.. Bing gives you the hotel recommendations as well as the opportunity to book flights directly.. Good for Airline companies, bad for the agencies... . Mahalo doesn't seem to play a very important role in this process.. Dyson: "I don't see them being able to keep up with the others." Baker: "Don't know where all of this is leading".

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the search market is THE market of the future. Search already is the main staring point for most people in the internet. If the providers now start to integrate content within their results, then they will inevitably increase their predominance on the web even further, by simply making it extremely easy and convenient for people to browse the web.

1 per cent market share for search is worth one billion!!!! Jason (Mahalo founder, Mahalo roughly at one per cent at the moment): " We will get to 5 per cent within the next years. Would make him worth five billion!!

D has also proved to be very informative. Met a couple of interesting people, most of which I am going to meet again during my stay in the Bay Area. Huge opportunities for Smart Phone market, no cut in Research and Development although money is short, Washington Post forcing their people to embrace the online version of the site as the only way to survive in this changing market, Huffington (Huffington Post) optimistic about the survival of newspapers and magazines " it is in our DNA".. Lets hope she's right..

Loved Balmer and Baltz.. two incredibly charismatic Ceo's of two internet giants (Microsoft and Yahoo) ... 

Tuning in slowly.. 

Jacob