Well it seems that Google has really upped game in the online collaboration and social media space with the introduction of Google Wave. In one swoop the guys who created Google Maps is trying to apply the same kind of sea change to the way we do email, IM, and just about anything else that involves interacting with another human.
Google Wave's Interface is fascinating and complicated!
Collaboration in all its forms appears to be the next frontier. But what determines if a new tools is great or just another way to make your head explode? After all, Soonr has some similar issues in that it does so much but must work on even the smallest interfaces (mobile phone).
The key is a maniacal focus on what people are doing with your product and how. In business, there are specific workflows and tasks that must be accomplish. We focus on those tasks and make them as efficient as possible. For example, how do you share a set of files with multiple people who are working on a project and always traveling? This was the question the led us to online Project folders.
Recently Storage Switzerland, a technology analysis and assessment firm used Soonr to distribute their printed and video reports. It was very easy to do and now their clients can view the information from any device anywhere. This solved the problem of multiple formats and the complex delivery mechanisms needs that they had encountered. We will be doing a full profile on Storage Switzerland’s use case in the near future. Just watch or subscribe to this blog to be informed about it.
Back to Wave. Trying to make a complex thing simple is one of the hardest things in the world to do. We know this first hand at Soonr. I suspect that Google will discover that they will have to focus on a fewer number of use cases and craft their solution to meet those needs. But then again, this is Google. They may just open up the API and let developers go to town. Kind of like they did with Google Maps. That didn’t turn out so bad!
