If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Reading the buzz about Google Wave over the last few months, I definitely get the sense of the blind men and the elephant. People seem to focus in on various aspects of this incredibly versatile beast. But calling Google Wave a “communication and collaboration tool” is like feeling an elephant’s trunk and calling it a snake.

As for me, I’m trying to take a giant step back and look at the entire animal. I see a platform that could become as fundamental to the digital world as the computer operating system. Through Wave’s extensible, embeddable and federated architecture, we will have the ability to dock an endless array of web apps onto an ever-expanding Swiss Army Knife web tool.

Imagine all the applications available on the web today, only pulled together into a common user interface with standard information architectures and easily integrated with each other. If there are 85,000 iPhone apps today, imagine how many more apps there could be for Google Wave, which will run on every possible interface. Here’s a very short list of the types of Google Wave apps we’d like to see right off the bat.

  1. Social Network (Facebook, MySpace) – We had to start here, since WaveLab.com is destined to be the developer portal serving our companion website—WaveCenter—a planned next-generation social networking website. Think about consolidating all the best features of the leading social networks while eliminating their various shortcomings, all on the latest technology platform. Sound interesting? Then you’ll want to check out WaveCenter.

  2. Dating (Match.com, eHarmony) – As long as we’re in a social mode, let’s include online dating. How many dating sites are there besides the giant leaders? Countless. And what could make more sense than tight integration between dating services with social networking?

  3. Music (Pandora, Slacker) – Nothing goes with romance more than beautiful music, and today we have the ability to listen to exactly the music we’re in the mood for, explore new songs, and share with friends. Could digital radio stations be improved on by integrating with social networks? We think so.

  4. Video (YouTube, Hulu) – Given Google’s ownership of YouTube, we’re confident we will see some video-related apps in the not-to-distant future. Will it just be a matter of embedding YouTube videos in the Wave interface? No. We’re sure it will go much further. Improve the search, filtering and organization. Throw in some editing tools. Apply collaboration. Who knows what could come out of it.

  5. Gaming (The Sims, World of Warcraft) – So far the game apps for Google Wave are elementary; hangman, Soduku, that kind of thing. These are just the first baby steps. Inevitably, every type of online game—MMOGs, arcades, sports, puzzles, strategy, and yes, gambling—will find its way to the Wave environment, new and improved.

  6. Financial Management – (Quickbooks, Mint) – OK, enough fun and games. Let’s get down to business. Need your accountant to have temporary access to your bank account? Just drag their profile onto your bank account wave/app and they’re in. And how about being able to navigate seamlessly through your bank, credit cards, and investment accounts and be able to drag funds from one to the other? Sweet!

  7. Application Builder (Zoho, QuickBase) – Why wait for some programmer to develop exactly the tool you need? There are already great web-based application development tools out there. iPhone provides a relatively simple app development kit. Wave will have the same thing. Imagine assembling widgets and gadgets into full blown apps like tinker toys—drag-and-drop integration. Cool? Oh, yeah.

  8. Online Marketing (Omniture, Lyris) Application built: check. Now you need to sell it. You’ll be able to market your products through multiple channels: Waves (of course), email (for as long as that still exists ; -), pay per click, social media, mobile, etc. all through an integrated suite of apps.

  9. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Salesforce, Netsuite) – Think a major application like CRM is just too big for Google Wave? Think again. SAP has already developed a Business Process Management prototype on the Wave platform, and you don’t get much more complex than BPM. The beautiful thing is any Wave app developer has these nice models to work from.

  10. Stock trading (ShareBuilder, eTrade) – Gotta manage all that money you’re gonna make from the above apps, right? Easy. You’ll have your trading system at your fingertips and tightly integrated with your other financial tools and social networks of like-minded investors.

  11. Project Management (Basecamp, WorkZone) – Project Management is the essence of collaboration, so this one is a no-brainer. Will the Wave apps be developed by the current leaders in the field or someone new? Either way, we expect this will be one of the first serious applications we’ll see on Wave.

  12. Outsourcing (oDesk, eLance) – While we’re thinking about project management, how about outsourcing? It’s increasingly the way business gets done. But all the tools on the market have significant functionality limitations. A Wave app will easily surpass any currently available system by integrating with other wave apps, including all the aforementioned business tools.

  13. Job Search (Monster, The Ladders) – Outsourcing may be the way of the future, but employment is hardly history. It’s huge. So Employment + Social Networking + Collaboration + who know what other applications could be available on the Wave… sounds like a better mousetrap to us.

  14. Online Education (University of Phoenix, LearnIt)- Across all ages and all endeavors, the web offers the perfect environment for learning. Collaborating on lesson plans, virtual classrooms, customizable curricula…the possibilities are endless in the Wave environment. Oh, and let’s not fail to mention the obvious integration between online eduction and job search.

  15. Price Comparison (PriceGrabber, Priceline) – With tools like these available now, anybody who pays full price for anything online is a chump! In the future, you’ll be a chump if you even have to spend a few minutes looking for the best price. Your personal bots and your social network will alert you when great deals on whatever you need appear—including on auctions.

  16. Auctions (Ebay, uBid) – Ebay may be a behemoth, but the technology is totally replicatable. And there is plenty of room for improvement. Just the way Google Wave is taking a fresh look at how email is done, we think it’s time someone took a fresh look at how auctions could be done—on a completely new platform. Oh, and in the meantime, through an Ebay Wave bot developed by WithWaves you can already search Ebay.

  17. Travel Service (Travelocity, Expedia) – You’re viewing pictures of a friend’s vacation and decide you want to go there. Click the photo and complete travel options appear on the screen based on all the data available to the system (the tags on the photo, your profile, your financial information, your calendar, etc.) Starting to get the picture of how having all these integrated apps can streamline your life?

  18. Real Estate Lookup (Zillow, Trulia) – Don’t just factor price and square footage into your buying decision. An integrated app could look up the distance to your work and automatically calculate the commute cost and time associated with that location. Oh, and that would work for apartment finder services too. (Rent.com)

  19. Data Backup (Carbonite, Mozy) – Data backup is booming these days, but this category is really a catch-all for various computer maintenance services—virus protection, spam blockers, anti-spam, parental control, etc.—there’s some real hazards out there and it can seem like a full time job just protecting yourself. It could be so much easier.

  20. People Search (Classmates, Wink) – With social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn out there, isn’t it surprising that there’s even room for people search sites on the market? Shouldn’t all that functionality just get rolled up into one easy-to-use app that’s also integrated with audio and video communication apps? Of course it should. And it will.

  21. Audio/Video Communication (Skype, Jajah) – Speaking of which… Integrated audio and video communication tools are a pretty obvious addition to this list. And while we’re at it, let’s include online presentation tools like Camtasia and Screenr.

  22. Geneaology (Ancestry, Genealogy) – Amazing how many web services should go hand-in-hand with social networking but don’t yet. Maybe it’s just too much trouble. On the Wave platform integration will will happen naturally—a family of applications designed to bond to each other.

  23. Blogging (Blogspot, Blogger) – After all the apps discussed so far blogging seems a little trite. But blogging is huge and it is the bread-and-butter of the social web. And if you think WordPress has a lot of plugins and themes now, wait until blogs can dock on any other Wave app.

  24. Health Care Manager (Minerva) – As far as I can tell at the time of writing this post, MyMinerva.com, a web-based personal health records manager, has no direct competitors. Considering the heat of the health care debate, that sounds like an incredible opportunity for some Wave app developer.

  25. Classified Ads (Craig’s List, Angie’s List) Let’s wrap this list up with classified ads. Such a simple application, really. How is it that Craig’s List has virtually no viable competitors? Isn’t it about time we got something new along these lines—just as easy to use but so much more powerful.

There should be little doubt that having some version of all these apps in Google Wave is not a question of “if”, but of “when”. Not to mix metaphors, but Google Wave is like a freight train that is is just starting to roll. It will gain speed quickly, and I predict that before too long the above list will be a tiny fraction of the services available on the platform.

All aboard!