I love Google. I've made no bones about that going back as far as my days as a BDM in the realms of the Internet software industry.
Almost everything they touch seems to turn to gold. And work well. And, in most cases, costs nothing too. Their Google Mail service is incredibly powerful. Their search engine is pretty omnipotent. I use their Documents service to write this blog, for example, or work out my accounting and other spreadsheet needs.
Even their Chrome web browser knocks the spots off the competition (IMHO, to use the web vernacular).
In fact, the only thing Google seem to have struggled with over the years is breaking in to the Social Networking party.
Their attempts to take on the establishment have fallen wide of the mark. Their Latitude service is very clever but basically will only be used by my wife to find out exactly where I am, and their latest attempt, Buzz, seems to be a quasi mash-up of Myspace (remember that?), Facebook and Twitter, all wrapped up in the cosy environment of their established Google Mail service.
It's quite good, really, and if it had been launched two years ago and caught the attention of Stephen Fry first, maybe Twitter wouldn't be the force it is now. But it wasn't and, sadly, it isn't.
There's another Google service that people seem to have forgotten about, too, yet I find myself wondering if we may have missed a trick with this one.
Launched at the end of 2009, Google Wave was quickly adored, quickly Tweeted about and then, just as quickly, forgotten about. Now it's a little bit derided, the black sheep in the Google family, but it's really rather clever - and I think that, as an industry, we could use it to get people from all quarters of the trade in touch with each other without having to book an expensive meeting room in a posh hotel somewhere.
So what is Google Wave? In short it's a 'collaboration tool', a term that has floated about in the realms of the Internet world for many years as one software developer after another has tried to put something together that allows corporate departments to work together on strategies, business plans and marketing solutions.
When you log in to Wave you get your list of contacts, your 'inbox', and the viewing pane for each Wave. At first it can seem a little confusing but once you've played around with it it does start to make sense.
A "wave" is a discussion, much like an Internet forum but held in private with only the people you invite from your list of contacts. Within a wave members can discuss the specific topic, share documents and annotate other wavers' thoughts. Plans for world domination can be drawn up in one wave while pictures of each other's wives could be shared in another; maps can be embedded, YouTube videos displayed and websites can be integrated in to the discussion.
If you're all online together the wave happens live, so you can actually see what other members are writing, as they type it.
The whole point of such a tool is to provide people with an easy way of working together. People from all sides can come together in one simple, centralised location as often as they like and run different discussions, or waves, for each area that needs attention.
Imagine if publicans could come together in one place and share ideas and frustrations without having to air them publicly in Internet forums or finding time to meet up. Pub companies could share meeting ideas and business plans and the GMB and Fair Pint could share documents with each other and their members on what they think the next Government report might mean.
Occasionally, these three factions could even come together in one giant wave to try and collaborate to find some common ground, all without the need to pay for expensive conference calls or meeting rooms, and all could happen at a time convenient to the individual members of the wave.
But collaboration only works if each member is prepared to see that the others might have a different point of view, and not call them rude names for having such a different opinion on matters.
I already use Wave with a couple of other publicans and we've shared documents and ideas - and even just vented frustrations - and the system works really well. As with many Google products, it's still classed as in 'beta' and therefore requires an invite to use it. I have invites, and I know other users who have spare invites, if you're interested.
As solutions go, it might help us put pieces of this jigsaw together. After all, when you read the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of collaboration (above) it seems rather appropriate...
Are you on StreetView?
As of this morning, one of Google's other services - Maps - went live with StreetView images of just about every street in the country. It's easy to use and quite interesting: if you've not seen it before, simply go to Maps, pick your street, then drag the little orange man in the corner on to your road and, hey presto, there's your house!
Is your pub on there? Maybe it could be used in your marketing somehow: "looking for us? Find us easily on Google StreetView..."