I just got an invitation to Google Wave (in its fetus stage still) and though its main application is for corporate/business use, I’m wondering how, in the months and years to come, musicians might use Google Wave for promotion or to keep up with their fan base. Looking into the future, does anyone have any visionary ideas?
I’m not sure that Google Wave is really designed for that. Google Wave is all about interactive documents and collaboration.
Here’s where Google Wave would work well for musicians:
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Planning a concert tour. The members of the band, management, roadies, and other interested parties could participate in a wave. They could post prospective venues using Google maps, Plan out itineraries, work out set lists, etc.
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Creative Collaboration. You could embed lyrics, samples, and other musical artifacts in a wave and have your collaborators work on them with you. Group songwriting becomes possible with waves.
I suppose fans could use it to collaborate as well. For example, a small band could make a wave available to fans, asking them to go out and find people who might attend a concert in their area and list them in the wave. The band could then take the wave and use it to convince promoters to book them in venues in those cities.
The key thing about a wave is that it’s bidirectional, and any part of it can be edited by anyone. So it’s not a way to communicate with fans, unless you’re looking for them to communicate back to you in a structured way.
There’s a full book on Google Wave available to read online. It’s by Gina Trapani, who started Lifehacker, and it looks pretty good.
Those are great ideas, and exactly what I was looking for. The idea about Creative Collaboration is especially good. I will pass these along and I’ll also read your link. Thanks!