6 reasons why Google Wave is likely to be successful.

Last week I was introducing Google Wave in an executive lunch to someone with an IT and Business Consultant background. He did not know of Google Wave until I introduced to him over the lunch (read my last blog post if you don't know Google Wave : Click Here). After listening to me for a few minutes, he suddenly said that Google would not be successful in launching Google Wave. His immediate and raw reaction actually reinforces my post’s title "the most ambitious communication product by Google”. It is indeed ambitious. The chance of success for such a comprehensive product to be launched to the mass market is low; thus the description “ambitious” was craved into my blog post title.

I am more positive becuase Google Wave fits the 6 characters that I have observed in the last decade from web applications that have made it big (at least once). I call them 6 Es. More will be covered in this post later.

I am slightly more positive in this case, also, because I believe the general user of web communication has been trained by Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Chat and hundreds of other Internet communication products. "Timing is right" in a nutshell. I believe the market (at least a significant portion of the web user) will understand and be able to use complicated product like Google Wave. These people are likely the online marketing evangelists like me. On the other hand, I think the product looks simple enough in its user interface. It looks reasonably simple that it will not scare people away. Chances are that people just use the basic function of Google Wave first when their feet just get wet. There is no need to use all functions inGoogle Wave. They can simply use it as a e-mail alternative.

Google Wave is more sustainable because of proven online advertising business model. Google will have to educate the market. However, give it some times and people will gradually get comfortable with the new interface and learn to use the advance functions. People will be “educated” by their friends when being prompted to read information pushing by their friends. Given the market share and financial power of Google, it will have enough resource to sustain the time needed by the market. Also, Google has already established it’s Online Advertising business model, it’s not going to have the pressure to quickly look for revenue stream to sustain the product or business development. Chances are that Google will use Google Wave to capture users who did not use Gmail but like to use it’s social networking and email integrated function. More users and more traffic will means more content to help distributed Google’s Adwords’ advertisements.

Another reason I think Google is going to be successful in long run is that with the protocol, extension and API setup, Google is going to gain cost efficiency in future application developments. It’s simply the backbone of the future communications. Google Wave is a new product but it is also a very strategic building component for future roadmap. As more applications are developed for Google Wave, the more successful Google Wave will be. So other new venture of Google's product will add weight and sustainability to Google Wave.

Having said that, of course it’s just very new and nobody can truely assess the chance of success. We are all making wild guesses. My guess is based on a simple score aginst the 6 characteristics to make it a really big scale killer app. Well, like other who’s trying to make my point across, I shall call them the 6 Es. They are:

1. Everyone - Can be used by almost everyone on the net – male, female, old, young, you, me ….
2. Everyday - Can be used everyday – just like your e-mail today.
3. Every device - Can be used by any device (PC, notebook and mobile device)
4. Every friend - Has the viral and networking effect – the user will introduce the product to other users
5. Every partner - Extension / API to further build niche applications and a large network of value-added software solution provider.
6. Every topic – Unlimited content with unlimited number of topics as people use it to discuss various topics. There is no cost to buy or to “write” content. Users simply supply unlimited amount of content to make the product ever interesting.

Google Wave fits them all.

Finally, many successful products come and go in the past becuase they were just one product. Google Wave will sustain longer because it is really not a product but a protocol standard. The real challenge to Google is whether other software partners will play along Google’s rule of games. If they have enough partners they will be successful. Like Windows’ success in having the most compatible software solutions, Google Wave’s success will depend on how well Google promote and support this new product to other “partners”.

By Stanley Suen
President,
E-Business Association

This article is also posted on Stanley Suen's personal blog. Click here to read.

The most ambitious communication product by Google

In my previous blog post, I have written my opinion about Twitter and why it would be successful in making it big (read the post here) becuase it is an Internet Communication application with an API for unlimited appliations to be developed on top. Today I have learned about another even more powerful and ambious product to be launched by Google. It will be one that embrace almost all forms of communications on Internet today that I can think of today. If you are the user of this product in future, consider it as if you are sitting in your own military headquarters controlling all communications on the IP based internet. You will use this product as your strategic and be-all communication control console. This is because you will use it to send and receive information like:

• e-mailing
  
• real time chatting,
  
• forum discussion,
  
• social networking,
  
• blogging,
  
• tweeting,
  
• photo sharing,
  
• video sharing,
  
• opinion and data collection,
  
• application sharing and collaboration and
  

a lot more depending on the application to be developed in future, limited only to our imagination. Since almost all intelligent electronic device is building upon Internet these days, to have an Internet Communication Center means you are going to manage ALL your communications through ALL your electronic communication devices.

This product is called Google Wave.

However, to say that it is a communication product by Google is a very large understatement. It is really a “Communication Protocol”, a centralized information switch and a set of API for new applications to be built upon. Based on these rules of communications (protocol) and core information switching services, another layers of interactive server and client software can be developed for various purpose or business application. The “product” of Google Wave to be launched to the mass public soon is really, just one of many to software applications built upon the Google Wave Communication Protocol and API.

It looks to me that Google is not launching a product but launching a new era of integrated communications with a vision to get many online company to adapt it’s communication standard. If everybody is to build their application base on the way of Google Wave, the internet world will have a more or less standard language amongst different applications to interact and share information. So it’s like reinventing Telephone back in the old days.

Google Wave is “Open Source” too. Being open source means they are trying to push it to the rest of the world in mass scale. Google has openly admitted that Google not only wanting to share it with the world but need the people to help developing the products. I think the “sharing” part of Open Source also strategically means Google wants to lead the mass market by contribution and influence to application developers and not by forces. Nothing’s wrong with that but it does have a lot of business implication. For end user like me, we don’t mind having a “unified” communication system that seriously simplified our communication in a one-stop-shop fashion. It simply means a lot of time savings in our communication in personal level or even for our work. However, it does mean that the world is going to be “Populated” with the same server applications. Since they are the same applications that are decided to communicate with each other, that means cross servers (or cross companies/organizations) communications is not only at the design of the product but also on how to promote the mass adaptation of the product through the way of Open Source. In a nutshell, through the freely distributed open source application, the market will adapt and eventually it will become a dominate market standard or defactual standard.

What does it mean to us as an individual with Google Wave? As I said in the first paragraph, we are going to have a one centralized communication console for all our electronic communication. You are going to save a lot of time from switching amongst communications (like Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, Forum, Blogging and so forth). In theory you will be able to see all incoming content and you should be able to dispatch your messages (not just text but photo and videos) back to all these sites. It will means that you will be seeing more new web sites that are “Google Wave” connected in future if they play the game correctly. On a social level, I think people are going to be very very addicted. However, people get addicted to things anyway like they do too much gaming, too much TV or too much social networking. If we are to be addicted we might as well do it time efficiently.

What does it mean to business? I think many web sites with their stand alone business models (like Forum, Blog, E-mail, Video Sharing, Photo Album, and Social Networking) will see their users being drawn away to use Google Wave. This is because they can setup their own Forum Thread. They no longer need to have a separate Video Service like YouTube. Many sites will be at risk. And then there are other opportunities for individual. Anyone with good content to show to the rest of the world will be able to use the comprehensive set of integrated services to connect to the rest of the world. He shall focus on his own content and leave the application part to Google Wave and it’s integrated web services.

For example, a person with good Stock Investment Tips can easily setup his own Forum by opening his “Wave” (or thread) to the rest of the world and people will participate in his Wave. So this person may not have to go to a specific forum site. In fact it’s like a centralized Forum Site broken down to individual people’s publicized mail thread. The value of a “centralized” site will be replaced by the “Google Search”. People will find their interested discussion thread. With the way the Google Wave Open Sourced server is setup, these forum threads can be hosted by any number of servers on the Internet. So the value of a centralized “Forum” will very much not needed.

Google’s benefits, other than the unlimited potential once the world is communicating its’ way, is a competitive application that keeps Gmail alive. And Gmail’s business to google is one of the largest publishing network for Google’s Keyword Ad to be distributed. With Google Wave it’s like Gmail the Next Generation. As long as people use Google Wave, there will be unlimited topical keywords embedded in people’s discussion thread to help Google to match relevant ad.

Most business will simply be a user of the Google Wave. Some highly related industry such as Newspaper company will have to think hard on how they will dispatch their news and content through the system and still find how to make money. Many “database” companies who will find hard time to get members’ contact info (such as e-mail address and telephone number) since people can “follow” and “unfollow” just like Twitter or “Make Friend” or “Break Relationship” like Facebook. The other side cannot hold on to the contact inform and forcefully “spam” them. Perhaps I am being a bit too futuristic but there is no harm just to dream a little on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I write this blog.

Have a good weekend.

By Stanley Suen
President,
E-Business Association

This article is also posted on Stanley Suen's personal blog. Click here to read.

Twitter the new hot property on the web

Twitter is the latest hot property which is making to the top of talk list for the Gold Rush of Internet. People call it the "MicroBlogging" service. Frankly, I think it's NOT blogging at all. It's just a "text" based communication channel which allows users to freely connect or disconnect (by following and unfollowing) each other. To me, it's the "SMS" of Internet. Of course thanks to the power of Internet, this new "SMS" is born with the Yellow Pages to enable networking of people and businesses. With 3G and mobile Internet access and rapidly development mobile internet device, Twitter is going to be "smater" SMS communication core that bridges all kinds of "newsfeed" across devices. It will NOT be the ultimate content hosting platform like Blogger but it will be the "Carrier" that brings people to the ultimate content page, be it text, images or video.

It has a lot of potential to be further developed despite that people are unclear how they will make money of this system. However, my guess is that they will make money by the applications that are built around Twitter as a communication platform. How Twitter will be used really depends on the future of the Client Software' business application.

How Twitter will help you really depends on what you want to tweet (broadcast) to the world and how attractive you are to grow the number of followers. The actor Ashton Kutcher, the guy married Demi Moore) has just reached 1.9 million followers as I am writing this blogpost. He has creatively used Twitter to connect to his followers. His real content are posted on Intenret Video services, NOT on twitter. He uses Twitter to broadcast the topic and link to the content. It's like he has his very own free broadcasting channels and TV studio with just Twitter and other web services.

Twitter matches my memory of "Made It Big" internet stories. If there is anything I have learned about the successful (or once successful) stories about Internet, it would be the Internet as a "Search and Communication Platform". The stories (in my rough memory order) of Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, ICQ, Google Search Engine, Gmail, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, Blogger and many others who has made it big basically falls into the category of "Applications". They are NOT content based. They are all Web Applications. And they do mostly 3 things:

1. Search - Google search, Yahoo Search
2. Connect - MySpace, Facebook, Match.com, LinkedIn
3. Communicate - ICQ, QQ, Skype, Gmail, YahooMail, Hotmail

Twitter does all these.

1. Search - Twitter let you find people (or twitter member to be precise, does not have to be a person)
2. Connect - With a press of a button, you can follow just about anyone who is open to be followed by public.
3. Communicate - You can easily broadcast your short message or send private direct messages to anyone.

Twitter has smartly kept itself extremely simple and avoid the potential press to have a highly complicated user interface as business grows. Unlike Facebook with it's ever growing complicated and hard to use interface, Twitter is not going to have the trouble of facebook's pressure to find ways to host all the applications on the facebook platform. Instead, the applications will simply build their own interface freely but at the back end they will tap into Twitter as the communication core service. Like Facebook, Twitter offers API for application development. And this API is the key for future success. Anyone can develop an appplication riding on Twitter as a communication channel and there is no need to comply to the Facebook like rigid interface. This will open up a whole new galaxy of applications riding on Twitter. If Twitter wishes to force any kind of community "standard" structure, it can be done on the future applications to be developed. It's like another "layer" of application wrapping around Twitter. And there can be many differnt layers limited only to applications to be developed in future. So in theory one can use Twitter API and add enough stuff to it that it will be come Facebook. In a nutshell, Twitter has a highly flexible architecture designed for all kinds of applications.

If you are a computer programmer, you can easily associate Twitter as the "kernel" of an operating system. On top of the very basic Kernel, we can create "System Services". On top of the "System Services", we can create "Applications". On top of Applicatons, we can create Associated Applications. And the list goes on!

Twitter is only at it's beginning. Many people have some doubt about Twitter's business model. I think Twitter's business model is simply NOT on the very Twitter itself. It's going to be the venture capture and angel investor of many "To Be Developed Applications" accross all kinds of businesses and industries. With the control of the "military communication channel" Twitter can promote or demote any businesses.

We are going to have fun watching how Twitter will grow.

By Stanley Suen
President,
E-Business Association

This article is also posted on Stanley Suen's personal blog. Click Here to read.