How will we ride the Google Wave?

When I heard about Google Wave, the digital marketer in me was keen to understand how I could exploit the pants off it.

Obvious uses came to mind, such as the ability to target Google Search Advertising to live conversations via the content network.

I could also see how brands could promote themselves to consumers through personal and direct conversations. Take the car market as an example, you could set up a ‘Ford Wave', where Ford lovers could share experiences and, perhaps, Ford could offer exclusive invitations to Wave riders to test-drive new models.

However, I was still struggling to understand how marketers could really make brands famous using Google Wave. Or let's cut to the important stuff... how us ad-folk could make some money from it. So, I decided to embark on the task of analysing some of the industries that I felt would benefit most from greater collaboration.

One of the first areas that sprung to mind was Education. All over the world there must be teachers, university lecturers and students who are keen to share learning experiences. This could take classrooms and lecture theatres global. Unbounded by classroom walls, children could have live Waves with kids across the globe, and teachers could share and develop learning ideas with
like-minded people. Students could get their exam results delivered by the Wave, so they no longer have to loiter around the letterbox waiting nervously. Assignments could also be marked and commented on via the Wave.

Journalists, reporters, producers could all use Google Wave to develop and share story ideas.

Sports clubs could use it to organise team games, training and as a forum to get to know their teammates better.

Government agencies and departments could use it to spread important messages. For example, they could set up a Wave for people living in areas at risk of bushfire that would allow them to collaborate with each other and, importantly, get access to real time updates. The Wave will also be a powerful tool for cause-related activities, as proven this month by the ‘My Oath Campaign' promoting White Ribbon Day.

The possibilities for collaboration really are endless. Perhaps, rather than being a money spinner, it will simply be the tool that modernises communications in industries and organisations that are crying out for new and more effective ways to collaborate.

Google's approach to this launch has also been quite clever by opening it up to the developer community first on an exclusive ‘invite only' basis (which, on further investigation, can really be anyone who poses as a developer or gets an invite from one). I think that the real meat of this tool will be uncovered by the development community through the API. In this sense, it is a blank canvas.

One of the first things I think we will see from the external developer community is the creation of a tool that allows it to work with other email clients, while at ‘Camp Google' I think we will see a commercial variant of the software that sits in their business applications portfolio.

Internal corporate collaboration through the Wave is inevitable, but the big players will only leave their safe Microsoft havens if developers can create some safety nets between the discussion and the clouds.

In 2010, consumers will be smarter and more security conscious about their social interactions. If they are marketed to via social networks it will only be accepted if it's secure, relevant and engaging, and businesses will only use the Wave if they have ownership of the conversations.

The other big question I have is how does Google plan to make money from the Wave? At a recent seminar, one of the creators, Lars Rasmussen, said he had a romantic notion that people might actually pay for it. However, I he also mentioned recently there are a number of ways it could generate revenue. One idea was to set up a Google Wave Apps Store for all the robots, embeds and gadgets being developed.

My tip? Watch the space and make friends with a geek.