How social technologies will consume email (efail)

Last time I wrote a post about how social web technologies are changing the way we communicate how we do PR, I started with this quote: 

"I only use email to communicate with old people" 

From the blog of Forrester web strategist Jeremiah Owyang, April 2007

This time around, I'll start with this one:

"So much off-the-cuff Wave hate. They're trying to fix email, people. Do you like email? No, because it's awful."

Alex Payne, works at Twitter

What's led me to want to come back and talk about how social web technologies are changing business comms is this new system in the making at Google. 

It's called Google Wave and it combines the functions of instant messaging, email, wikis, blogs and it adds in an open API, which means anyone can build stuff to make it better (like how there are loads of apps that work with Twitter, such as Tweet Deck or Twitpic). Words can't describe how awesome it looks. Google soft launched it to a developer gathering this week, and to see it, if you have a spare hour and 20 minutes then watch for yourself (note the audience in giddy excitement at functions like live IM, threaded emails, conversation playback and live blog comment conversations). 

So how do I think systems like this might change business comms? Here's a few thoughts: 

• Speedier and more efficient communications - Combining presence with email will mean you can have real time online conversations when appropriate or just send emails if the recipient's offline. Without having to switch to an instant messenger to do it
• Better team work - Email chains can be treated like a wiki, an IM or played back from the beginning like a video of the thread. It means the 'reply all' culture of many organisations gets distilled down to something simple to work with
• Social media everywhere - The benefits of short, open chats that technologies like Twitter have shown us will, through Google Wave, become pervasive in the enterprise

Another thing I think is smart - Google Wave's first accounts were given away to the audience of the demo. They will, no doubt, become the advocates who begin seeding Google Wave when it launches in private Beta later this year. Gmail was launched in a similar way and that was a cracker. 

Comments

[Charlie O'Connor]

I quite agree with the speed and convienience of the internet social networking. For me in the music business PR area it has been a boon. I am able to keep the press up to date at the touch of a key (or two) any time night or day without making a telephone call or sending a fax.
Charlie O'Connor
ARCHIPELAGO PR

[Dan]

It sounds ace, but it makes me wonder whether they're trying to do too much with one product – It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off.