.While in Montreal this weekend, coming in from the cold,warming up from icy temperatures outside, I found myself intently reading Howard Greenstein’s post on   Google Wave’s Massive Potential for Business Users and found it masterful (especially, tying the ideas of Daniel Levy on Group Dynamics of teams).

Howard made me want to run back to my hotel room and play with Google Wave (which I’ve been neglectful doing over the last two months I’ve had a Wave account), perhaps finding a way to tie Google Wave to Social Media and Web Analytics, but as I logged in to Wave, noticed quickly that there was no compelling reason  to use it (yet).

Plus, using Wave in  Firefox, crashed it (but a lot of applications crash Firefox).     Still, I myself thinking about critical mass and inflection points, that not enough people are using Google Wave, yet, but as  more people use  Wave – it will become  a dominant platform for communication and collaboration and transform our lives.

I think it makes a lot of sense that Google Wave has the capability to  unify every part of  a project, and all it’s modes of communications, under one grouping or unit (which can also be broken down in several ways with out losing it’s cohesiveness); and, I’m  wondering if Google Wave could be part of a larger answer, tying together strategy and  Social Media return on investment.

So how would Google Wave do anything for Analytics?

For one thing – there’s so much duplicated communication in email now – often so many virtual team members working on a project over different time zones, containing all of that work in one unit, called a Wave – is a marvelous thing – and if we have some kind of tracking mechanism we might be able to “optimize” Google Wave – perhaps Google Wave will have plug ins to tell us what the optimal resources for any Wave project … based on the activity taking place within that Wave; that might, in turn lead to staffing changes.

Another possibility for Analytics is tying different “silos” in companies together using Google Wave, in a new way – and Wave clearly isn’t there yet – but if we have data and sales information in different formats – all over the enterprise – and it’s difficult to assemble it now, it’s possible within a few years – Google Wave will become the “glue” that makes it much easier to pull all that “disparate” data into one view – and up to an executive level scorecard (see my post on Influencer Scorecard, The Chief Influencer Officer & the transmutation of Social Media and PR).

What about Social Media?

As there are often many efforts underway by a Brand at any moment – tying blogger relations, campaign management, online video management, event planning, marketing, etc, together could be done within Google Wave.    Perhaps the Social Media ROI debate that is likely to begin gelling in 2010 – will take place with Google Waves.

That’s one Google Wave, I want to surf.

I think so.   It all started with Google Maps – and evolved into a new model of Communication …… Google Waves  code  is pretty lightweight – from what I can see in the Online Video for Google Wave, below).   By the way, and  it’s all Open Sourced.

Google will fully complete it’s  transformation   from a Search Engine – which is not only where it started – to a new platform and way to communicate within 18 months – I predict  (ie:  see Google Wave as an interactive Translation tool as one example  – 73 minutes into the Google Wave Demo video, below).

It looks like Google Wave is an environment that allows you to run other applications like Firefox, in it.  Once you have applications running in Google Wave, you can move things in between them (like photos  – looks like 15 minutes in you can see that).

BTW, I’d love one or two of those cool Google Wave t-shirts to wear.

About 10 minutes into the video above there’s an integration of instant messaging and email in the same thread, which isn’t possible until wave (one tool instead of two); some of the limitations of current email applications are due to the architecture of HTML 5, and the way email evolved (see 39 minutes into this video above – it’s explained much as I have said it above – Wave could not evolved without Google Toolkit and the more you use these tools, the more your brain changes – the more your self expression changes!).

Naturally, tools evolve as the need for them change, and I don’t know that a platform like Google Wave could have evolved 10 years ago, even if the software to create it might have existed – because the user base and need for it – probably wasn’t ready – but it is now.

For Blogging, Google Wave has a lot of offer – creating a Wave and embedding it in a Blog Post (20 minutes in to the video) – though it makes me wonder if Google Wave will change the nature of Blogging, itself.  And the question becomes – how will the iPhone run it – how will mobile devices use it (can they?) and how the experience of using Google Wave on an iPhone (say, next year) will change the nature of Mobile Social Networking (look at 25-26 minutes in to the online video above).

Google Wave deconstructs what a document is – see 30 minutes in – and you can play it back – the whole history of the Google Waves your part of (much the way I do art on the iPhone – see iPhone Art – now everyone is doing it! at ArtNewYorkCity.com).   The Implications for Newspaper and Magazine production are profound, as well as for Metrics Tracking – which is going to be interesting – since there’s an opportunity now to build hooks to make Analytics Tracking much easier – something Flash should have done way back, but never did.

What’s interesting here – is that the Application of Google Wave is more advanced than what the audience can yet handle and process – that’s my feedback – The brothers who wrote this – also conceived on Google Wave as a Documentation Tool (to track your other Google Waves – see 41 minutes into the clip above).

Extending the Functionality of Google Wave is covered 43 minutes into the Online Video on Google Wave, above; the Context Spell Check is an extension that can do an auto-correct (44:00 – 46:00) and also detects links (linky – 45 minutes in).   The “Yes/No/Maybe” Gadget at 50 minutes in the Google Wave Video above is very interesting way of updating a  collaborative document.

Creating new Google Waves from Robots has implications for Search Optimization, I suspect, and next year, I would not be so surprised to be on a panel at Search Engine Strategies talking about it - or write a nice article on it for Entrepreneurs at Entrepreneur.com, where I write a column of Web Analytics, Social Media and Search Marketing (see Learn to Measure Your Web Presence and Turn Conversations Into Sales as recent articles of mine over at Entrepreneur.com).

Server Side Robot Extensions are possible as well – a Wave on a Web Server, like a Web Form on the Wave (59 Minutes into the video of Google Wave).  You can use Twitter in a Google Wave (Twave or is it Tweety? – 58 minutes to 62 minutes in); you can essentially run applications on a server and call into other programs and thread them into Google Wave as a Robot Extension.  There’s a Bug Code tracker that replaces products like ClearQuest (thank god!) at 62 minutes into the clip above, and you can use Google Wave to discuss the Bug Tracking within it – you can also automatically pull in bugs into a Wave and track them there.

Essentially, Google is creating a new architecture to build applications – so a company, say a Job Search Engine, could build it’s own Wave – and I, if I could do it, build my own customized Google Wave for me, and in fact, Google Wave will be great for Non-Profits – who can make much more powerful applications – Google calls it a Federated System.   I predict that programmers to specialize on Google Wave applications and extensions will do very well in the coming years.

Interestingly, Google has anticipated the private use of data, data that Google can’t see (69 minutes in) – even though the executable is on Google’s servers, the information being passed back and forth, isn’t ever seen by Google.

Mitch Joel has a good post on Google Wave, Marketing And The Future Of Connecting

It is way too early to tell, but there are some indications that if a platform like Google Wave does take off, it will fragment the concept of an online social network and splinter it down to a place where these areas are not used by masses to congregate and boast how many friends or connections they have, but perhaps the metric becomes how many waves individuals are engaged with and how active the conversation and collaboration is. The platform obviously creates much more targeted inventory for advertising with the Google AdWords model (much like it does over at Gmail), but depending on how open or private these waves will be, this could also be one of those moments in time where people shift from having their opinions out in public, back into smaller, cozier and more personal conversations in a Google Wave.

So ….. Google Wave is going to change Marketing – and it’s really early on now – so I see the full implementation of Google Wave about 18 months out – which mean this is the time to ramp up – to …. Get On the Wave.

In fact, I’ve often thought of the metaphor of “The Wave” being on the “Crest of the Wave” – part of the being a visionary, is being ahead of the rest of the Ocean – you need to be like a surfer, riding on the top of the Wave.

Most people don’t have a lot yet to say about Google Wave, but they will … in about 18 months -  don’t wait that long – start straining your thoughts to the crest of The Wave, now – and leave the rest, who can’t adapt that quickly, where they are (stuck).