Ok, Google Wave was just recently released, and I still haven’t gotten my invite.  What is a poor web consultant to do?  Why, search the web for other things that I can play with now.  This is where Zoho comes in.

First of all, Zoho is not new – it’s been around at least a few years now, competing solidly with Google Docs at least as far back as 2007.  I have read a number of articles on it this year, and even ones that proclaimed it to have beaten Google Wave to the scene with integrated conversations, documents and project management.  Additionally, Zoho gets high marks when compared to Google Docs for its more feature-rich and elegant user interface.  But, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of them as they don’t have the household name brand that Google has.  Additionally, Zoho is not an open-source platform, so external developers aren’t going to be paying attention to it like they are with Google Wave.

The first thing that strikes me when visiting their site is the huge array of applications they have.  It is truely amazing.  Ok, I’ve known about the document and calendar stuff – but a CRM service too?  And an online web-conference tool?  Web-email?  Ok, I’m really intrigued and wondering why I didn’t follow up with them sooner.

Just like Google’s applications, Zoho is 100% in the cloud – yes, more cloud computing services.  But unlike Google’s apps, Zoho’s are much slicker – I’m understanding those positive reviews I’ve heard.  While I have very limited hands on to give a formal review, I’ll at least throw out a few visuals that tell their own story:

The main screen for the Zoho word processer

As you can see above in the left side navigation, Zoho integrates all their tools together.

A pretty slick set of toolbars for a web-app

Compare the feature-rich tabbed tool-bar to the more simplistic one from Google below.  To many, simple might be better, but for most business-oriented users, Zoho provides a better web-based replacement to Microsoft Office.

The Google word processor toolbar by comparison

Zoho is one tough competitor to Google in the cloud computing realm, but it will be interesting to see how Google Wave impacts things.  I expect Google Docs to become more Wave-oriented, but Zoho should also benefit from Wave as it brings more attention to cloud computing platforms in general.

Do you have experience with Zoho that you can share?  How do you think it stacks up to Google?

Since Google Wave is expected to have a limited release on September 30th, it is time to get an understanding of what this tool is, how it works, why it is revolutionary and how we might use it.

What it is?

Announced by Google on May 27th, 2009 as a “personal communication and collaboration tool”, Google Wave is the next big “death of email” hype storm.  As an open source application, it is available for others to develop it out via it’s API – much like Twitter with it’s endless supply of third party apps or add-ons for your Firefox browser.  File sharing is native to it so you can drag photos and docs right into conversations – no more email attachments.  Everything is real time with threaded conversations, wiki-style editing and the ability to embed a Wave into your own website or blog.  While definitely a tool that can define the future of online communication, it also could be another layer to the social media onion.

If you want to make waves, you need to get in the pool!

How does it work?

Users create “waves” and add other users to it – much like starting an email to a friend or group of people.  But instead of a back and forth volley or text with attachments to upload and download, everyone shares a common pool of media – text, photos, videos, documents, RSS feeds, gadgets, etc.  New users can be added to the pool and continue to contribute in real-time.  And if you’re added to the pool late and don’t have the foggiest idea what everyone is currently talking about, you can replay the wave from the beginning to watch the timeline of events unfold before you.

Why is it revolutionary?

Currently, our online communications are very fragmented – Email, Instant Messaging, Twitter, Facebook, forums, file sharing websites, social networking sites and more.  Some of these technologies, like email and instant messaging are pretty ancient in their technology.  Newer communications, such as Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites provide a richer experience, but are still spread over a diverse landscape.  You can use third party tools to aggregate some of these web 2.0 tools together (Ping.fm, Seesmic Desktop and FriendFeed to name a few), but none of these wrap the whole enchilada within their tortilla.  Google Wave is the whole enchilada served straight from their coding kitchen.

How will we use it?

The primary use for it of course, is for online communications and file sharing.  Whether you are creating a wave to discuss the football season with friends, share photos with family members or collaborate on a project with a client, it could be the go-to tool that truly does spell the end of email.  However, since it is open sourced for the developer community at large, new uses not yet imagined are sure to be developed – think iPhone apps.

The Google Wave web app

The key is adaption.

The biggest hurdle with any new technology is that it has to be adapted by the general public to succeed.  Just being better doesn’t guarantee the public will embrace it.  Google Wave has it’s own lengthy list of jargon terms and from-scratch approach to the user interface.  While Twitter has gained a huge following with it’s unique approach to communication, it only requires a small learning curve and a few silly-sounding jargon terms to learn such as “tweet” and “retweet”.  Google Wave is a bit more complex and abstract.  There are still lots of people who haven’t figured out Twitter (or email, for that matter), so I see a high rate of avoidance being inevitable.  And if someone isn’t using Google Wave, then you obviously can’t communicate with them via the tool.

So what about this new jargon?

Wave: Since this term mirrors the name of the product offering, it makes sense that it is the primary element of the new technology.  A wave is the full history of a conversation thread or project collaboration.

Wavelet: A subset of a wave – basically consisting of related elements of the full wave.

Blip: Single elements of a wavelet, such as individual messages.  Blips can be private or publically shared.

Children: Blips that are attached to other blips.

Document: A blip’s content.

Extension: Applications that extend the functionality of Google Wave.  There are 2 extension types that can be used: gadgets and robots.

Gadgets: This would be like add-ons that you can install into your Firefox browser to increase it’s functionality and to customize it’s usability.

Robots: Yeah, really – robots!  Basically extensions that provided automated processes.

Google Wave: a stand alone tool or embed it elsewhere.

One of the things that increased the popularity of YouTube is it’s ability to provide embed code that you can use to post YouTube videos on other websites and blogs.  This dramatically helped to spread the brand awareness and site content to thousands, if not millions, of URL’s throughout the internet.  Similarly, waves can be embedded elsewhere on the net.

In conclusion:

Google Wave has the clout and resources of Google, the anxious anticipation of millions and a fresh (if somewhat different) approach to online communication going for it.  It may not be adopted by all – or in my opinion end fragmentation of online communication totally – but it does give us a chance to explore the next evolution of the web.  Even in the unlikely event that it fails miserably, it is already setting a new course that other online applications will follow.

Additional Resources:

Here is a highly abridged version of the video presented by Google on the waves.google.com website.  The original is long – very long.  This 10 minute abridged version sums it up:

Here is the link to sign up with Google for an invite to use Google Wave: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/