Five Ways Google Wave Can Be Successful

Google has a load of projects and applications on their website. I am particularly a fan of Google Docs. Google even has their own social networking site called Orkut. Ever heard of it? Yeah, me either. The great thing about Google is that they love innovation and try very hard to be innovative, but that's where it stops. Most of their innovations aren't popular and they don't market them well enough to get the popularity a lot of them deserve. I think they realized this and that is where Google Wave seems to come in. Google Wave basically takes all of these applications and utilizes them into one giant "wave". Consolidating their many applications is a great idea, but now they still have to jump over the hurdle of being successful at marketing Google Wave. I have five ways that Google can make Wave successful.

1. Prove to people that Facebook isn't that great
While Facebook has proven to become the dominate social networking site on the internet by beating out MySpace and all other would be competitors, they still have yet to prove themselves as great innovators. They did some things right in the beginning like keeping everything simple, uniform, and somewhat easy to use, but then with every upgrade they made it harder and harder. Their "feed" idea was also a good innovation that people didn't like at first but was a necessity in the constant flow of information. Now their upgrades continue to take away the simplicity of Facebook. It's not user friendly anymore, and in many ways just isn't well designed. Their constantly having coding problems with their chat program, and many of their applications are doomsday devices filled with malware. I think at this point a lot of people are sticking to Facebook because it's the best option they have right now and everyone is on it. Years ago Myspace was in the exact same position. Everyone was on MySpace and I'm sure there were a ton of people who never thought they would leave MySpace. People will leave once you give them a good reason to and sometimes it doesn't happen all at once, but the key thing is to start showing people why they need to leave. This is what Google needs to do with Wave. Start showing that Google Wave is simple, easy to use, and socially interactive. Let's be honest, when was the last time you actually browsed your friends Facebook page? Facebook has become more about communication than about profiles and pages. Google Wave provides that communication but in an easier way. They can do this through word of mouth. They can do this through their monster advertising system. They can show video's on YouTube. There are a slew of ways to get Google Wave in "the know". Even right now they are doing the classic Google invite system. In the end, they need to remind people why they went to Facebook in the first place and show them how Facebook has become more of a hassle than an advantage.

2. Integrate it with Google Android and other smart phones
For those who don't know, Google has created quite the mobile OS entitled "Android" for several smart phones (myPhone, Motorolla Droid). It's linked with all the Google applications as well as other applications and allows for download of third part applications as well. It's a mainline competitor to the iPhone dominance. In my opinion they have done better than anyone to compete with the iPhone. I'm positive that we will be seeing a lot of smart phones with the Android OS for years to come and the best way to get people to like Wave is to plug it into their phone. I honestly use Facebook more on my iPhone than I do on my computer because it's easy and available. If they can do that with Wave then they will have people interested and hooked. It will remind people about Wave, and continue to keep people linked in with Wave. This will be key in making the Wave one step closer to a full competitor.

3. Plug it into every major website available
Facebook made an excellent move by having major websites allow people to login in simply through their Facebook account. This not only eliminated having to sign up to another website, but it made Facebook that much more accesible, noticeable, and necessary. Twitter made the same move and it would only make sense to have Google Wave do the same thing. Obviously, this includes plugging in their own button to share to Google Wave as well just like you can do any social site.

4. Customize it to be beneficial for business
It's fairly obvious how great Google Wave will be for business, but new innovative services tend to be lost on businesses until years later. Good documentation and communication is vital to most businesses, and being able to do that in a streamlined way is even better. Google should market this service for small business and big business alike. If they can prove why Wave is a great tool for communication in business, then not only have they reached a great market but they've made it that much more vital for people in everyday communication.

5. Constant Innovation
The ultimate doom of MySpace was not necessarily Facebook, but was MySpace not keeping up with Facebook. They stopped being innovative and were extremely stagnate. It wasn't until Facebook started to dominate with innovation that MySpace tried to keep up, but by that time it was too late. The internet is changing so much that it's absolutely necessary to continue to innovate and change for the better. This doesn't mean changing to change, which I sometimes feel as if Facebook did with their updates. But changing for the better.

I have had the pleasure of using Google Wave in it's preview period and while I wasn't able to use all it's features, I can see the potential behind the idea. I think that it definitely can be successful, but they need to market it well, prove to people it's worth getting on board with, and showing how good a tool it can be. Once they finally release it to the masses, I would recommend checking it out for yourself. It could be the next great internet communication tool.