Has the Google Wave caught you yet?

Many have now received an invitation for the preview of Google Wave.

If no one you know has an invite for you, you may be able to request one direct from Google. The “preview” part means it is not all finished yet. You may expect some bugs and problems (hey, even Gmail went down for while in 2009).

Is Google Wave the wave of the future?

What is Google Wave and why would you want it?

Wave is Google’s proposal for a new type of email. It combines email and chat in a forum-like thread. Extensions add features like maps, games, video, and many other options.

Wave really shows promise as a useful collaboration tool.

With a few extensions, I could see it having much of the features of Microsoft Groove. You start a wave just like an email; however, each person added to the wave can interact live just like in a chat room. You can play back a Wave almost like a movie to find out who made what changes or replies at what point in the Wave. It is hard to explain but easy to see once you use it.

What is not so great about Google Wave?

Well just like an email can be forwarded to someone you may not want it to be, anyone in the Wave can add someone else from their contacts. It is possible to edit someone else’s reply (although you are then both marked as having made or edited the reply). I would like some kind of way of making a Wave private so another person not originally invited is added and a way to mark a reply or blip (the official name for each reply or part of a Wave) non-editable as an option.

Google Wave does not work in all browsers.

Wave works in Firefox and Chrome. IE does not support HTML yet so a Wave  frame must be loaded before it works in Internet Explorer. They don’t seem to recommend that (try it yourself to see). As of now, I do not believe there are any smartphones that can handle Wave (I nearly got it to work in Opera Mini on a Blackberry, but could not read the Waves). My guess is there will be Wave specific apps before the browsers will work.

The biggest problem is the Wave users.

Actually, the lack of Wave users. There aren’t too many people using it yet. Annoyingly, some of the people I have sent invites to have not even signed up. Some that have signed up have yet to reply to the Wave I sent them. I might as well have spent my invites on total strangers for all the good it has done. At least they could have passed on invites to people that might have used Wave.

So, will Google Wave become a new internet standard?

Maybe not as Google Wave. “What!” you say. Google has released the Wave code as open source. They are allowing other  companies (even Microsoft) to use it to make it universal. It is something everyone can take and use (like email). I think this is its strength as far as becoming a new standard (well, Microsoft rarely decides to use open formats for anything but prefers to introduce its own standard that fails to work even with other MS products). Time will tell.

I see much potential in Wave.

I have family members that spend a lot of emails talking about the family tree, family photos, and family reunions. These are the types of things that Wave would work fantastic for. If you have to organize an event, a Wave with all those involved is simply a no-brainer. It could even replace typical chat programs.

Surf’s up.

Have you used Wave? What do you think?

I had a lot of plans for last week.

All of them got changed.

First, my wife got sick.

While inconvenient for me, and uncomfortable for her, I was still able to do much of what I had been planning. The worst part is she had already used up her sick days due to a fall at work the left her unable to walk straight for several days. While she has some spare vacation and personal days, she was trying to save them.

Then, I got sick.

A terrible headache and leg cramps kept me awake but stuck in bed for the last half of the week. When I did fall asleep, I usually woke up within an hour so sweaty, I needed to change clothes. I have been going through 3-4 changes of clothes every night since last Tuesday. Plus an occasional change during the day. I have been pretty much stuck on my back in bed the whole time.

So, I have not gotten anything I wanted to do this month started yet.

In fact, today is the first day I have even turned on my computer since last Wednesday. I have not checked email, voicemail, or done much else in all this time. I am trying to get that straightened out first. At least, my email is a bit better than it used to be since I cleared out some of the lists.

So, I am off to a slow start. I’m still weak, but at least I feel much better. Also, my wife didn’t say "You look terrible!" to me today. That is what she told me yesterday. That is not something that instills confidence in your own health.

The worst part?

It looks like I missed a beautiful weekend. All the news programs were saying how nice the weather was all weekend. I did not get to enjoy it.

At least my wife and I did not have the same thing. I would hate for her to have whatever I did.

I just finished listening to a fantastic marketing discussion with Perry Marshall and several other marketing leaders.

It was a great chance to listen to what they have to say on many aspects of marketing, especially online marketing. I learned a whole lot that I will be using both online and at my offline business.

One speaker sort of thought it would be a good thing if it did cost something to send an email.

He suggested maybe a 1/4 of a cent or some very small cost. It email were not free we would not have so much junk in our email accounts. But it was his next statement that I really thought was interesting.

If it is not worth it to you, to pay to email me, is it really worth my time to read?

I really liked this point. With a real letter, whoever sent it has placed some value on getting the message to me. The speaker’s point was that before emailing a customer, to think if the email would actually be worth paying to send. If it would not be worth paying to send, it is not really worth the recipient’s time to read.

His point was that email is not really free

The attention of the recipient is very expensive. If you plan to send a newsletter to a customer or person on a list that you have created, it is important not to waste the recipient’s attention on things that might not interest them or might cause them to lose interest in your newsletter.

I doubt we will see a charge to email anytime soon. At least, not till after we start paying a tax on each email. But it is a good question.