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Google Wave explained

One of the hottest news for social communication this month was the beta launch of Google Wave.
Like a lot of people, I’m still waiting for my Beta invite – Google released 100K invites on Sept 30, 2009, and hopefully a 2nd wave of invites will come soon.  {Update : Thanks to Gus for sending me a twitter invite soon after this post was published)

Whilst there is no shortage of commentaries on the product, such as this one from PC world, this 2 min video from Epipheo Studios does a great job of explaining the background need for a new way to collaborate, and the major features that Google Wave seeks to address.

Here’s a screenshot of Google Wave, highlighting how Wave extends the inbox to incorporate discussion, attachments, and lists the contributors.

google_wave

video via FRANkVize

Collaboration efficiency is at the heart of Knowledge Management, and it’s exciting that Google Wave will be run as an “open source” project becoming a valuable building block for a new range of collaboration tools.

Having experienced Google Wave, I can say that it definately delivers on providing efficiences in collaboration, but does remind me of the hope I felt when Lotus Notes came out.
Editing the content nuggets from the things where the content value has a very short shelf-life is one of the key challenges for community administrators.

Google have published one of their presentations on Google Wave from May 2009 (1 hour, 20 mins in length), which covers the product in more detail. Incidentally, Google Wave was developed out of the Google offices in Sydney Australia!

You can sign up for the 2nd wave of Google Wave invites here

Update:  For a comprehensive guide to Google wave Gina Trapani and Adam Pash have created this Complete Google Wave Guide

Augmented Reality Business card

I continue to read with interest the growing number of Augmented Reality applications that are starting to emerge, this one a pretty cool 3D Augemented Reality version of the humble business card.

AR Business Card from James Alliban on

The major limitation of the technology today is the lack of standard Augmented Reality readers, but work is being done to address this.

I can see implications for the Real Estate market.

Via Dean Collins

Tweetreel – Video from Iphone

Since Apple’s release of the iphone 3GS, there has been lots of discussion around the various tools and applications that will help deliver video content from the phones directly to social networks and to the web.

Tweetreel is one such application seen here in use with video stream from the Michael Jackson memorial

Techcrunch also reports of Facebook’s new iphone app which looks set to amplify the delivery of content from iphones to Facebook.

Social media used for digital activism

Social Media has brought content creation tools to consumers, allowing an efficient means f­or organ­i­zi­n­g, f­aci­l­i­tati­n­g ou­treach, en­cou­ragi­n­g di­al­ogu­e an­d rai­si­n­g m­on­ey­.
This video describes how social media is being used in Lebanon for “di­gi­tal­ acti­v­i­sm­”.

Successful cause initiatives such as Kiva (Microfinance),  myC4 (Microfinance & Mentoring), Build An African School (Financing new schools in Africa) and MobileMovement (Microfinance using mobiles) all understand that the social media landscape provide consumers the means to more deeply engage with the cause, and in doing that these initiatives are reaping the benefits of communal support.