Developers put their spin on the Wave
Google introduced the product to developers first for good reason. It wants their help. Early on, Google decided to make the product open source to let developers take the foundation of Google Wave and build from there. You can be sure there are at least a few developers brainstorming ways to bring more marketing value to the nascent product.
Google doesn't need to be told how smart a move that was. Look at Twitter -- the current reigning champion of social media. Twitter's small team developed a product that's incredibly simple on the surface and yet hundreds (perhaps thousands) of developers have created new ways to make the service even more powerful.
Without Twitter's open source platform and the involvement of countless third-party developers, it is doubtful Twitter would have ever entered the mainstream.
Even Gmail, something near and dear to Google's heart, had a much simpler beginning. New functions have been frequently added to the product over the years -- some from inside Google's halls, others from outside talent. Gmail's reach and business acumen has grown in stride as a result.
The point is that developers will define what Google Wave will become. It will be its inherent nature to continue to blaze new paths as it grows to meet more needs -- most of which are still unknown and undefined.
For now, Google Wave is living in a paradoxical state. It's starting off simple, but where it goes nobody truly knows.
Google's place in the wave
One thing is for certain though: Google has plans for Wave. Although the company hasn't made clear exactly where the business model lies in the product, a steady gambler could hedge their bets around Google's strengths and money-making skills in search and ads.
"Right now, I don't see anything for marketers to insert into the conversation that's wholly new. I don't see it, but I do see more data and more conversations going on that Google can look at and put contextual ads next to," Broitman says.
"Every innovative idea that Google comes up with, it's as if they already have the monetization plan down... I would imagine that is their monetization plan for this as well," he adds. "I don't see how else they could insert themselves into this."
Still, to his credit, and despite his general enthusiasm and excitement for the new product, Broitman isn't taking too many leaps.
"There's no way Google can deduce logical meaning from conversations as it's happening," he says. "It will be interesting to see how they tailor the ads for these environments."
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