In my first article about Google Wave, I talked about what really sets Wave up as a potential game-changer: the XMPP protocol.  Today, I want to talk about how it can change the game when it comes to business communication.

What it Means to Have a Conversation-Centered Protocol

This blog is a communication with its readers.  Insomuch as you can respond to me by commenting on these posts, and I can respond back, it is also a direct conversation (as opposed to the broader conversation anyone with a blog takes part in).

Wave takes this kind of communication and put it in “real time” (i.e. makes it instant) and, just as importantly, makes it horizontal instead of vertical.

With Wave, you don’t have to wait for your commentary on someone’s idea to be approved.  Just like with internet chat, you can respond when you want, how you want, and on more or less equal footing.

There’s one thing that makes Wave very different from chat, however (aside from the hundreds of applications).  That’s the ability to respond to a message on totally equal footing–as in, you can even go back and change the original message!  This is one reason you may be using Wave as a conferencing, brainstorming, or other meeting tool in the future.

(While it’s great to be able to evolve an idea like that, there will have to be some kind of restrictions & authorizations for this to be useful as a business tool.  That shouldn’t be a problem.  By the time Wave is out of beta stage, there should be applications for this–as well as about 1,000 other things.)

This is good for business meetings in a world where more and more often, collaborators on a project don’t live in the same physical space–or even on the same continent.  I don’t think anything will replace what we get from face-to-face interaction.  But Wave and the popularization of XMPP in general will give us the ability to be in different places and yet still work very much like we are all sitting in the same boardroom, making things easier and flights less necessary (sometimes).

Google Wave Sends You to the Conversation (Conference, Brainstorm Session, etc.) With Everything You Need

With Wave, you and your team don’t all have to get logins for a new website each time you want to do some different kind of collaboration.  So it doesn’t matter if you want to have a multi-person conference with yourselves or different clients and just talk, or hash out the details of a proposal, or meet with your partners, investors, and marketing company to look at a proposal or make a choice on new graphics and logo for your company and have them modified as you go along.

Normally, it’s very possible you’ve have to get on a new website for each of these.  At the very least, you’d probably have to pay for some service and make sure that each time you brought somebody new on-board, you’d have to get them signed-up with your service–kind of a pain if you’re constantly courting new clients or taking new proposals.

Wave eliminates this step.  As long as everybody has Wave they can show up and participate without having to jump through any hoops.  If anyone needs to add extensions, gadgets, or other applications, they can have them recommended directly by other people in the conversation/meeting.  This makes coming into a Wave a lot more like just walking into a physical space for a conversation, and less like meeting on the Web as we’re used to it.

And Speaking of Wave Applications…

Tomorrow, I want to talk about what wider use of the XMPP protocol, and Wave in specific, will mean for applications (hint: they’re going to start talking to you).  I’ll also list some of the apps you’re most likely to find useful for a business environment.