In the last months a lot of people wrote about why Google Wave failed. I think the mayor failure was to promote Wave with a big bang on the Google I/O conference 2009, followed by personal invitations. As many others I subscribed to be invited, looking forward to test Wave. Weeks later the invitation code showed up in my mailbox. I was pretty pissed off by Googles product policy and so my first attempt was to find out what does not work on Wave. I found a lot of errors, unfulfilled promises and the user interface was difficult to understand and adjust.

Within the following weeks I gave some beginner webinars. I was able to concern with Wave intensively and started to love it. Wave is a great collaboration tool, especially when several teams work together on different topics. Using it I learned the real technical flaws of Google Wave:

• Not very intuitive user interface for beginners
• Lose track of waves when there are a lot of them
• Use of Google Chrome to avoid browser crashes
• Bots and Gadgets running roit within waves

I still believe that Google Wave is a great tool for collaboration. Unfortunately the goals Google set have been to enthusiastic, showing a lack of understanding peoples needs. For shure I am not the only witness. Maybe Googles effort to sell Wave as an business solutions failed beacuse of this. Anyway I am shure that a lot of techniques and tools will appear in continued tools like Google Docs and Orkut. Now it is time to Wave Goodbye:

We tried to make it work, you in a cocktail skirt and me in a suit but it just wasn’t me
You’re used to wearing less and now your life’s a mess so insecure you see
Well I put up with all the scenes and this is one scene that’s going to be played my way

Take your hands off me
I don’t belong to you, you see
And take a look in my face for the last time
I never knew you,you never knew me, say hello, goodbye
Say hello and wave goodbye

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbEOgfq3CNc

Management:

Goals

- Constant activity

- Long run engagement

- A few often viewed videos

- A variety of videos

Channel planning

- Constant profile activity

- Constant video uploads

- Monitor comments

- Report metrics

Activity

- Add friends on Youtube

- Comment other videos

- Subscribe channels

- Join groups

- Start a group

- Use bulletin board

Report includes

- Video views

- Average viewing time

- Referals

- Click Through Rate

- In-Video clicks

- Conversion

Content:

Profile

- Convenient photo

- Website URL

- Contact information

- Complete „About you“

- Create playlists

Video Content

- Short and informative

- Authentic background

- Use your product or service

- Appeals to community

- Call to action

Video Data

- Link videos to profile

- Select proper thumbnail

- Title includes keywords

- Meaningful description

- Include link to website

- Tagged with keywords

Video Link Building

- E-Mail customers

- Link video on website

- Use video repsonses

- Social Bookmark Services

- Social Network Services

Bonus (not included in the PDF!)

Fail! So much the worse:

- Video title including “Imagetrailer” or “Promo video” - Are your customers searching for this?

- No Sound - What’s going on there?

- No Motion - Why should I view static text in a video? This is boring me.

- Scrolling text messages - A brilliant idea to get motion! This is annoying.

- Video title like “Pamela Anderson” with no relation to video or your channel - Fuck You, Spammer!

- Videos with pornolicious content to boost your channel - You are a genius! This way you are destroying your online reputation!

- Layers above the video with ads for competition / SPAM products - Be aware of channel providers!

The checklist is also available for download here: Download the PDF

A feed reader assistant

When you are following hundreds of feeds, there are a lot of informations you probably never want to read, because you are only interested in some of them. The oportunity of Google Reader: Provide a service, which automatically sets posts to read and only leave the relevant posts marked as unread.

How does it work?

Fist I have to point out, that an opt-in solution (like a spam-filter) won’t work for me. The reason is: Newsfeeds are about information I want to see. Usually I don’t know which information is relevant until I read the caption and the first lines. With opt-in any corresponding information will be bannend as soon as I checked it as unwanted, without really knowing whats going on. Thats not what I need, I want intelligent filters. An opt-out solution with user request would be much better, because it does only what I had determinded and known. I would interact with the system and control the flow of information manually.

Tweak the assistant

Now Google Reader has to know, which information is important for me. There is the classic RSS reader view. Each post has a button to set all similar posts as read. When I click on this button, a small window pops up and shows me the similar posts, each with caption and some lines of content. While this sounds to be something like a spam filter, it’s different: It’s not only about the words, its about the root of information too. With root of information I mean the original post and therefrom aggregated information. If I’m not interested in particular information, I’m not interested in informations gathering around it. That’s imporant when you are reading multiple feeds of one branch.

Intelligent sets

The advanced link from website content to feeds. The usability is similar to bookmarking services like delicious. Open a website, select important parts of the content with the mouse. Start the Google Reader plugin which automatically puts URL, page title and selected content into the form. Now there are some field for tags and categories plus a date picker to select a specific date or a period of time. Saving this file adds a ‘intelligent set’ into my Goodle Reader. The assistant now knows, which information is important for me. If posts match this criteria, the reader shows them as important.

The opportunities

A Google Reader with information assistant would be great! The real power comes from the intelligent sets: Imagine Google Reader showing information about other feeds and websites matching the criteria. Imagine Google Reader reminding me about specific information at a date I had selected, showing me todays feeds and websites matching the criteria. Think about automatic information updates after a period ot time. I would pay for this and I’m shure that a lot of people will do.