Google Wave

Google Becomes a VoIP Provider with Gizmo5 Purchase

Google announced its 4th acquisition of the year with the purchase of Gizmo5. Gizmo5 gives Google the ability to connect VoIP calls from the Internet or from mobile devices, changing the game for Google Voice and Google Wave.

AT&T recently filed a complaint with the FCC charging that Google was violating communications guidelines by blocking phone calls to certain areas. Google’s response was that because Google Voice does not actually provide the backbone that carries the actual calls Google is not subject to those same guidelines. Gizmo5 puts some holes in that defense.

Google Voice has generated a lot of excitement providing a diverse set of advanced voice and messaging capabilities, but without Gizmo5 Google Voice relies entirely on your existing voice services. Google Voice is basically an extended feature pack that you implement with your existing mobile and landline phones.

By purchasing Gizmo5, Google now has its own VoIP capabilities and can beef up Google Voice to compete directly with Skype. The bigger picture, though, is what Gizmo5 provides Google in terms of expanding the unified communications functionality of Google Wave.

I have not been overly impressed with the early release of Google Wave, but the initial demonstration Google used to unveil Google Wave was quite impressive. If Google manages to mature the current Google Wave beta into the Google Wave it displayed for us at Google I/O 2009, and adds in SIP-based VoIP capabilities, Google Wave could be a potent unified communications platform and offer an impressive, cost-effective alternative to existing unified communications systems.

Google Wave Isn’t All Sunshine and Lollipops

OK. I swear that I am not anti-Google or anti-Google Wave, and I promise not to repeatedly bash Google Wave. In all honesty, I couldn’t wait to get my Wave invitation and I am still very excited to jump in and see what its all about. My previous post about being underwhelmed has more to do with what it looks like now during beta testing and not living up to the hype, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think it will eventually be a very capable product.

That said, there are two sides to the Google Wave coin. Its not all ice cream and rainbows, or sunshine and lollipops. First, the real-time collaboration is a huge benefit and the ability to see others typing as their fingers hit the keys is novel, but do we really need to watch others type…wrong…then backspace….then retype?

Have you ever written a message in anger or frustration? Then you take a step back and a deep breath, re-read it, and decide that there is a more appropriate way to say things so you edit the message before sending it? If you were holding that conversation in a Google Wave the other party would be able to watch as you type what a complete jackass….brain dead moron…..jerk….good person with the right intentions, but poor execution your boss is.

Real-time typing has its drawbacks.

What about the ability to chain and forward a Wave well after the fact? Say you start a Wave with a friend and you are venting between the two of you about a third friend. The Wave evolves and later the third friend is inadvertently added to the Wave. That person can go back to the beginning of the Wave, replay it, comment on it, etc.

Once its a Wave its sort of out of your control and the concept of assuming that everything you type will be shared publicly takes on a whole new meaning.

It will be interesting to see how some of the pitfalls of Google Wave are addressed as development evolves and the fully functional Google Wave eventually hits the Internet.

If you are on Google Wave, you can feel free to connet with me at s3kur3@googlewave.com.

Google Wave Underwhelming

You know that anticlimactic feeling you get when something doesn’t quite live up to the hype?

Like when you tried to avoid seeing the movie Titanic because a Leonardo DiCaprio love story just didn’t sound appealing and you were already sick of hearing Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On, but then everyone in the world but you saw the movie….three times? So you finally caved and saw it and left thinking ‘it was a good movie, but nowhere near worth the attention its getting and certainly not something I’d pay to see more than once.’?

That is how I feel about Google Wave right now.

A few weeks ago when Google unleashed a new flurry of Google Wave invitations I managed to acquire one (thanks again Marcus). It still took forever for the invite to actually arrive in my email, but at least I didn’t have to continue begging, or troll eBay trying to buy a fake invitation.

Once it arrived though it felt like 4pm on December 25th when the feeling sinks in that after months of shopping, and wrapping, and decorating, and Christmas carols, and tons of money….its all over. That was it.

I am not condemning it yet. I understand that it is a beta version, and to be fair I haven’t comprehensively examined it yet. I will definitely be diving in and perhaps it will seem more compelling once I get under the hood and start figuring out what to do with it.

All I’m saying is that after the 90 minute video overview Google unveiled it with, and the hype leading up to getting the invite, it just doesn’t seem very exciting, or like the unified communications competition it has been described as (which I am guilty of as well).

Stay tuned for more in-depth reviews and assessments as I dig in and figure it all out.

Google Voice- UC For The Budget-Impaired?

A llloooonnnngg time ago (OK- it was 2 years. But, in tech-time that is an eon) Google bought a small company called Grand Central. The essential principle behind Grand Central was “one phone number for all your phones, for life.”

Grand Central has been adapted into what is now Google Voice. Google bought up 1 million phone numbers recently as it prepared to launch Google Voice to the masses. Earlier this week Google Voice began its public launch. Currently it is by invitation only (Google employed the same sort of social network marketing to create demand and build interest when it launched its GMail email service).

The central component remains the same as the principle behind Grand Central. Essentially you can have a single Google phone number which can ring to your home phone, mobile phone, work phone, or any combination thereof. As you move, change jobs, etc. your Google Voice number remains the same so you never need to update peers, friends, or family.

Google Voice offers a number of other useful features beyond single-number access though. You can receive voicemail in your email and forward or share it as you wish. You can customize which phones ring based on who is calling. You can establish different voicemail greetings depending on the group or individual who is calling. It also provides conference calling and call recording features, as well as the ability to switch between phones mid-call.

Google Voice is free (at least for now). As it is, it seems like it could be a sort of poor man’s unified communications for the budget-impaired. When you combine Google Voice with the upcoming Google Wave, it certainly appears that Google could put a dent in the unified communications market. Check out the Google Voice site for video demos of the features and functions. You can also click the link to beg for an invitation to the party.