Google just announced Google Wave. If you’re following the news breakers Tech Crunch & Mashable, you will quickly get the perspective on how big this really is. It’s being touted by Mashable’s Ben Parr as the “evolution of email” and it is posturing to “redefine web communication.”
MG Siegler of Tech Crunch is implying the reinvention of email as he quotes Lars Rasmussen of the founding team, “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today.” Siegler then goes on to agree with the statement. He continues, “Wave offers a very sleek and easy way to navigate and participate in communication on the web that makes both email and instant messaging look stale.”
There’s two things I’m going to address in this blog post. First, What is Wave? Second, How will it impact ministry in the Church?
1. What is Google Wave?
Wave was created on the premise that email and instant messaging, albeit very successful, were created long before the robust nature of the web as we know it today. Higher quality of content, and a much loftier desire for individuals to collaborate with one another exists today far beyond what anyone dreamed 15 or 20 years ago.
Basically think of…
- im
- web chat
- project management software
- drag and drop capabilities
- desktop sharing
- file transfer
Roll all of them into one tool, and then redifine a couple elements (real time im – character by character), recorded im, webchat & and activity… AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!
Blow your mind? Absolutely. In typical Google fasion, they’ve released this project prior to launch, and in its infancy to web developers in order to help them push the concept even further. Whether or not Wave proves to be all its claiming to be, its completely redifining the idea of web communication and collaboration for the masses.
How will it impact ministry in the church?
First off, it won’t if the church (local) continues to exist in a linear 1.0 world. It will impact ministry in your church if you are willing to move to a concept that I refer to as church distributed, or uncontained. Over this coming weekend, I’ll define that in another blog post.
Web tools, or any other tools for that matter don’t have the power to impact or change anything. How you use them does. Don’t sit back and watch the productivity of the world skyrocket, and not leverage those same tools to impact the kingdom of God.
Analogy: If you are going to build a house, please don’t use a hammer and nails. It will take you much longer and cost way more than if you invest in a nail gun. Do in a week what would have taken you 3 months!
Analogy: When Gutenberg invented the printing press, he redefined communication. The church responded by printing Bibles and catapulted the rate at which the Gospel was being spread throughout the world.
When Google redefines communication in the 21st century, where will you be? And what will you DO with it?
Here are a few snapshots released on youtube of what it looks like.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m wondering at what point do people say, “Enough, already!” It seems that we are being inundated with new apps and features almost every day. I think Google Wave may go the way of Google Chrome. I do not know too many people using Chrome, which, granted, blows any version of IE out of the water, but comes nowhere near Firefox in my opinion. Tried it. Didn’t like it. Went back to Firefox.
You could be right! More powerful than the success of the product itself though, is the concept. The fact that web communication is being redefined is at the crux of it. Email/IM is 20 year old technology. It will be redefined in the coming years and Google is raising the expectation of users to reach for a much higher standard than what currently exists.
david – terry has been tweeting (?) all day about this – let’s get on this – and incorporate it into how we do ministry at CF.
That is true. I find it odd that if you use G-Mail, it still says it’s in Beta testing! LOL
If Google Wave catches steam it has the potential to change the way we communicate with each other tremendously. We currently use a lot of tools to communicate. email, IM, phone, twitter, sms, and more. The idea behind Wave is to bring it all together so our communication can be done with one tool. Google is making this an ‘open source’ platform with extensive API’s to get more people on board. Google has also built Google Voice which I would anticipate would become a piece of Wave in the future. This could be a game changer and revolutionize the way people interact with each other.
Chrome will be becoming more popular as Google begins having the browser pre-installed on PC’s that people are buying. They are moving slow but with Wave it is becoming a bit more clear why Google has been buying various companies and why they built Chrome. They are a big player in HTML 5 and are grabbing and building tools to leverage HTML 5 in a powerful way.
I am excited for Wave, but time will tell if this ends up being just another program to use, or if this platform changes the way we communicate with each other.
Jeff,
I think the problem is, that many consumers and users tend to be very conservative when it comes to trying out new technology. The idea of having an all in one feature seems great. But, here’s the question: Can they sell it to regular Joes like myself? I still refuse to use Twitter because I cannot see the point of updating my friends on every little thing I do during my day.