Google has really been on a roll lately. Nexus One, Chrome, Wave, Voice, Buzz, and the list goes on. I’ve joked with people for years that Google will rule the world; it’s only a matter of time. Google was acquiring every sort of “good” technology (blogger, feedburner, Picasa, YouTube, etc) or service at every possible opportunity; it was clear world domination was their goal.
Personally, I love most Google products. However, I’m usually not an early adopter or on the bleeding edge with Google. I usually try or experiment with their new services, let them grow a bit, then I make a decision to take the plunge or not. Many of Google’s services start as beta and then stay there…forever! Okay, not quite forever, but some of them stay there for a really long time. As such, each of these services do have their quirks or unrefined qualities about them.
I do use Gmail as my primary email client. I probably use gmail for different reasons than most. I don’t really save a ton of email, so I didn’t sign up for the storage space. The gmail interface is less than cool, so I didn’t sign on for that reason either. I did like gmail because I could consolidate all of my email accounts (pop3, imap, etc) into one inbox. I created an account, added some of my email accounts, setup some labels, and gave it a whirl. Eventually, the interface grew on me and the convenience of logging into one account versus 5 was a real time saver. I was in love!
Fast forward a few years…Google Wave is one of the next cool things. Google has an 80 minute video or an 8 minute video for you to see what its all about. Wave is a tool intended for real-time communication and collaboration. I’ve received an invite to Wave and I’ve tinkered with it for a short time, installing extensions, bots, etc. There are video/phone conferencing, weather, map, and game widgets just to name a few. The only problem…most of my friends don’t use gmail or have a google account. So, I don’t really get the full effect of Wave on my own. That said, Wave is really exciting, cool, and has a ton of potential. I’ve contemplated trying to get my co-workers to use it and see how we like it, but I haven’t quite decided on a good project to try this yet. Wave is kind of hard to describe, but I interpret it to be a replacement to typical email in that you can add all sorts of “widgets” to aid collaboration in your “wave”. Check out the video(s) for yourself or try it out.
I have not personally used Nexus One so I won’t touch on that at all in this post. I have used Google Voice in limited doses and I think that technology is outstanding. I’ve done small demos using my personal devices and I love it. I have yet to convince my wife to completely drop our land line phone and strictly use our cell phones. Once I get her in agreement, we’ll be using Google Voice regularly. I truly believe in Google Voice that much, and I despise regular land line phones that much. I also use Google Chrome on a pretty regular basis and I enjoy it, but I still prefer Firefox. I do believe that Chrome is maturing very quickly and could potentially supplant Firefox as my preferred browser.
Buzz is so new that I really don’t have a great opinion of it yet. My initial feelings are that it is a hybrid of facebook and twitter. You get some of the photo and commenting capabilities of facebook and the status update and reply capabilities of twitter. Buzz is rolled into gmail very quietly, and it is very unobtrusive; appearing as another link under your inbox. You can share information publicly to the world or privately to your gmail contacts. Although, I’m not sure how convenient this public address would be:
That is just a sample address I created for one of my updates. Definitely not as easy to remember as a facebook url: facebook.com/myusername
You can also link together other accounts such as your youtube, picasa, and twitter into Buzz. That’s all fine and dandy, if you have those accounts, but not so cool if you don’t. Buzz is definitely an interesting tool to keep an eye on, but as with all Google services, it hinges on the critical aspect of having a Google account. I have a Google account, but not everyone I know does.
They all have their various email services like AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, etc, etc, etc. I think everyone that I know has a facebook account, some have a myspace account, and even fewer have a twitter, linkedin account, or their own website. To me, this is a huge problem for Buzz. Unless you’re one of my contacts with a Google account, Buzz is a dud. I think the next steps for Google would be figure out how to get everyone to sign up for a Google account and actually use them, thus providing major traction for these services.
Services like Wave and Buzz are still too young and unpolished to draw people away from refined, polished products like Facebook and even the still-kinda-young Twitter; all on their own. The whole “invite” process with Wave and Voice cannot be helping matters either; especially in today’s world of instant gratification. “Yeah, I’d like to try Google Wave”…”Sorry, you’ve got to wait for an invite”…instantly you’re expecting these services to be lights out if you’re going to have to wait for them and be “invited”; if you even sign up for an invite.
Honestly, I imagine that the integration of Buzz, Wave, Gmail, and all the other Google tools/services will form some sort of uber-tool that eventually dominates all of our lives and furthers Google’s goal of world domination. They are aligning all of the pieces in a very calculated progression; email, chat, calendaring, voice, video, operating system, mobile, browser, maps, social networking, collaboration, and so on; it’s only a matter of time…