Google Wave May Become a Powerful Tool for Small Businesses

What is it?
Google Wave appears to be a natural evolution of previous efforts to combine communication media into one comprehensive package. Launched on September 30, Wave—what Google calls an “online communication and collaboration tool”—promises to be a powerful tool for business use.

Google Wave is still on an invitation-only basis, and some say the limited amount of users currently is its biggest limitation now. Thus, it is probably still too early to tell how widely the technology will be adopted and how business will end up utilizing it.

Google Wave and Small Busineses
Technology writer Karisha Prescott suggests 10 ways that Wave can help small businesses.

Among them is cost—it's free. Also, it's open-source, meaning businesses have free access to modify in ways to help them.

Also important are Wave's communication and collaboration tools, which allow businesses to streamline in-house document sharing and project organization. Not only can this save time and expense, it helps managers keep track of who is contributing to the project and how.

Prescott also says that Wave enables businesses to communicate with their customer base on a targeted level. They can increase visibility among other Google Wave users with profiles and surveys, and they can create waves specifically to inform users of special offers and other general information.

As the business world waits to see just how businesses begin to use Google Wave, it might be a good idea to scope it out and see how it will fit into your business and online marketing strategy.