Unconventional Updates

I recently received my invite in to the Google Wave Preview Program and I’ve been looking around to see what all the buzz is about.

Google Wave is what Google calls the successor to email. It is a web-based application that combines email, instant messaging, social networking and group collaboration techniques. Rather than emails, you send ‘waves’, which sort of make emails look like telegraphs. Waves are interactive, real-time and have a whole range of functions. You can use them to organise events, share photos real-time, brainstorm ideas, collaborate on reports or notes, or even just send a message. If you enable the function, recipients can edit your waves, and you can later on. Its great for when you send that message you really didn’t mean to send, you can just click delete even though its already been sent, or just edit that spelling mistake.

The application is quite customisable, with all the functions nicely grouped together in arrangable panels. Whilst the primary function of Google Wave is to communicate with others who use Google Wave, there is a sort of ‘backwards compatibility’ option to send  messages to email addresses, and likewise receive emails through a username@googlewave.com email address. This will probably boost the early adoption, seeing as the program wouldn’t be much use without this feature as there will only be a small amount of initial users.

Social networking, whilst present, is limited to just a half-hearted user profile and a sort of creative use of Waves. Its good for communicating socially with friends and such with the integration of email, IM and gadgets, however not so good on the actual networking aspect due to the lack of ways to find new friends. The incorporation of gadgets in to Waves is quite clever. For example if you want to send a Wave invitation to a bunch of friends to your party, you can add a weather gadget for the day. Why? Well mainly because you can.

I think that Google Wave would be brilliant if there was one more thing. Ubiquitous use. Google Wave will need to be a universal email replacement rather than an geeky alternative in order for it to live to its full potential. Otherwise it’ll just be used as a regular email client as only a handful of people will have the capabilities to receive and use a Wave. My opinions of Wave are purely speculation as I have hardly been able to actually use it due to my mediocre friends list, and due to the general computer illiteracy we are surrounded by, it may just stay that way. I think Google really does overestimate the general public with all its ‘revolutionary’ apps.

And the bit you’ve been waiting for. I have 25 Google Wave invitations up for grabs. To win them, all you have to do is write in the comments why you think you deserve one. If I deem you worthy, I’ll send you an invite. So you’ll want to post the comment with your Google Account, or write your email address if you don’t mind being picked up by a spambot.

Renegade

If you already know what social networking is then just skip to the second paragraph. But keep reading if you are still in the dark. Social Networking is a relatively new internet service providing users a simple and easy way to stay connected with friends across the globe by sharing pictures, current status and instant messaging.

The first popular service was MySpace. This was popular with younger audiences due to their constant access to the internet and the highly customizable personal “spaces”. Then Facebook soon overtook MySpace in the number of users due to its simple user interface. But soon another social networking site was to overtake both of these sites. Twitter. 

Twitter is a micro-blogging social networking site allowing ‘tweets’ with a 140 character limit. Which as you can see from the chart above has gained mass popularity. This has been helped along by many famous celebrities joining Twitter such as Barack Obama, Oprah, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Fry, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, John Cleese, Kevin Rudd, Olivia Munn, aston kutcher, Vanessa Hudgens, Steve Jobs, Selena Gomez, Hugh Jackman, Emma Watson, Miley Cyrus, Slash, Weird Al Yankovic, Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry just to name a couple.

I myself had an account on Facebook but after a couple of weeks deleted it after deciding it was completely useless to me. I also currently have a Twitter account as does Unconventional Updates. The thing I’ve noticed about Twitter is that many of the people on it already have blogs or full sites and are simply using it for smaller more personal updates. Of all the people I’m following 65% of them have a blog or other similar site. 

But what is it about micro-blogging or even just social networking that people find so captivating? For me it’s about getting to know people better than you normally would be able to (usually due to the fact that they live on the other side of the world). So if you do use social networking, why?

Sandmonkey