Google Wave: how will it affect music?
Having just watched the 80 minute presentation introducing Google Wave, I must say that my mind is blown. If you haven’t watched the presentation or heard of it yet (it was introduced yesterday), Google is presenting Wave as an “online communication and collaboration tool.” With that said, watch the video and prepared to be stunned.
Imagine combining Facebook, email, instant messaging, threads, Twitter, Google Docs and Maps, and Wikipedia… all in the same application in a browser, and cranking it to eleven. But that description doesn’t do it justice, really.
So without toying with Wave yet (it’s not open to public testing), here are several reasons that I foresee Wave being important to the world of music:
Agencies will use Wave to communicate with the media, design press releases, and develop plans with record labels.
Artists will use Wave to plan tours, communicate with fans, edit riders with venues, and share media files. Since Wave will be fully functional on the iPhone, bands will be able to update their sites or track their latest waves while on the road.
Bloggers will use Wave to communicate with agencies, bands, and readers. Teams of writers will edit their articles in real time, and embed them onto their blog when it’s ready… and then communicate with their readers as people respond. I imagine that Google Wave will change the face of blogging in an unprecedented way.
Music consumers will be able to communicate with artists in new ways, share media with their friends, and find music news quickly. The translation tool will enable fans to chat with people across the world without a language barrier to stop them.
Once Wave applications are developed (developers have several months to get them ready), users will be able to add extensions and plugins to make Wave even more personalized and powerful. You can be sure that developers will create astonishing plugins that will integrate Last.fm or Hype Machine with Wave. This will bring new meaning to the share button.
While people have been talking about Twitter and Facebook changing the way people access information, this will REALLY change things. Artists, agencies and bloggers will all be striving to have an article, announcement or media file “hit the wave,” as it spreads quickly to millions of users, bringing a flood of traffic to their website. Wave will make media extremely viral.