I’ve been reading up on Google Wave and thinking about it’s potential as a hub for transmedia activities.
Wave is the next step in Google’s ongoing move towards development of collaborative tools, following on Google Apps, Calendar, etc. Those were the obvious first step, Wave is the next generation tool, bringing in real time conversation and extensibility. If Wave becomes a default part of the Apps package that Google offers, along with an easy migration path from gmail, it could see relatively quick adoption.
The extensibility of Wave is key- if something useful is missing from Wave, it can be added by the public rather than waiting on Google to add it. We can expect most major social applications to eventually supply Wave support of some kind. Alternatively, if there’s something Google does “wrong” in the basic Wave server, developers can “fix” the problem with their own custom development. For example, if Wave search is as poorly implemented as gmail search, a developer could provide a better search module (perhaps even using the Google Custom Search api!).
It’s also important to note that Wave itself is essentially a set of open protocols, and that users are allowed to provide their own Wave servers. Indeed, it’s quite possible to develop custom extended servers. We will quickly see special-purpose Wave servers developed for a variety of custom needs.
There will probably even be custom Wave servers developed for transmedia campaigns. Since the basic technology is already highly social, collaborative, and real-time, it’s well suited for transmedia events. Twitter, Facebook, wikis, Youtube, blogs -they can all tie in or be replaced via Wave technology. All parts of the campaign could eventually be collected and centralized on a Wave. Games can be added, music could be added, maps, etc. And link friction (a measure of how easily a link can be spread) should be near zero, due to the real-time collaborative nature of a Wave.
There’s a lot of potential in Wave, can’t wait to see what happens when it’s released to the public!
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