Google Wave Notifications Make It a Business Application

: Image via Wikipedia

Google Wave was probably the most eagerly awaited software technology in history. Those guys did an awesome job of pre-announcing the release and the world waited with baited breath.

It seems Google must have learned a lesson with Wave, because only a few months later the company let Buzz seep out. No fuss, no announcements. It just appeared for Gmail users and still doesn’t work in Google Apps

Google Wave just bombed, virtually sinking without trace and the company’s reputation has obviously taken a battering in the process. Hence the sheepish release of Buzz.

We got egg on our face as well. The idea behind Wave excited us with its potential as a collaboration and discussion platform. We even started a daily Front Office Box discussion, which sank without trace. In our Avantrasara business we tried to use it to bring a project group together. It bombed there too.

Users found it confusing, not helped by the strange idea of those extension. In some cases they had trouble figuring how to add new comments or edit texts. But the biggest problem was not knowing when there were updates. Nobody wanted to sit with a Wave window open and nothing happening and they didn’t have time to keep logging in to check. The application badly needed notifications – an email letting wave participants know there was something new.

At last we now have email notifications and hopefully Wave will achieve some serious adoption. We hope so, because the opportunities for real time customer service are exciting. And opportunities for collaboration.

A bit like Buzz, notifications just seeped out a couple of days ago. No announcements that we saw. We came across it in the Google Wave blog. Perversely there’s no mention of it in Wave even but you can find it. Hover over the Inbox label and a drop down arrow appears. Click the arrow and voila – notifications.

Turn on notifications and select frequency and you’re up and away. Now all we need is for people to use it so there are updates to be notified about