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Am I the only one that isn’t too excited about Google Wave?  What’s promised as the next big thing in social media and online collaboration definitely sounds interesting, but it’s definitely still a pipedream.  Will it be a flashy new Google Docs-type platform, or will it fall flat, like Google Knol?

One thing is for certain, the technology is pretty cool.  Think of all the internet was promised to be, and think of what it is today.  Now think about the possibilites of actually working from home, across business units, and from across the world.  Now you’re getting closer to Wave…

Every once in a while, I like to play devil’s advocate and poke fun at Google, because they tend to come up with really great ideas, but don’t immediately follow-through on many.  Maybe deferring to cyberspace to make those tough business decisions for them.  Interesting strategy: the court of public opinion.

What are they promising now?  Equal parts conversation and document, sharing, live stuff.  Okay, I’m with you crazy Googlers so far, but fail to see how it’s much different from Google Docs, which offers much the same features only 2 years ago.

Check out Google’s developer preview, which is somewhat less geeky and dry and a little more comical because their presenter, Lars Rasmussen kind of sounds like Kermit the Frog.

What’s exciting about this technology is that it opens the door to all kinds of interesting possibilities online:

• Collaborate on projects that span time zones, continents, and the world, by sharing a common workspace and making edits in realtime (not all that dissimilar to Google Docs, granted)
• Embed all kinds of media into a collaborative piece, even application functionality, games, rich experiences, video, etc.
• Stay within the cloud, or take your wave offline, into corporate intranets and beyond the watchful eyes of Sergei and Larry (for your conspiracy theorists)

And now, the problem

It’s the Jerry Maguire problem.  Show me the money.  Google!  Show me the money, Google.  You got the money?  Show it to me, the money, that is.  Oh, you don’t have it?

Why don’t they have the money?  Any company worth their salt is capable of wrapping some kind of business model around a fantastic piece of technology, right?

Maybe not!  Arguably, Facebook hasn’t even figured it out in the social space yet.  Advertising has always been there, but advertisers themselves have had a time going at it to generate really attractive and creative offerings online.  More technology isn’t the answer; strategy is the answer.

Make money!

I’m not even sure what the advertising potential of Google Wave is meant to be.  Given iGoogle has had it’s share of relatively good advertising ideas in the form of Widgets and Apps, it doesn’t make sense to rekindle that fire.  I’m just scared to think about the nightmare scenarios…

Imagine your kids are working on a school project for Halloween and choose to write about “how best to kill vampires”.  They mistakenly type “steak” instead of “stake” and an advertising drone jumps into their Wave space, offering them coupons to use at Ruth’s Chris.  Not exactly a winning scenario.

It did get you thinking though.