7 Unique Ways to Use Google Wave… that maybe You didn’t Think of

We’ve all probably heard by now of the real basic and practical ways of using Google Wave like: note taking, brainstorming, organizing events, social networking, etc., but I wanted to compile a list that thought a little bit outside of the box.

And I wanted to ask you, based on your own areas of work, interests, and ideas, what creative, unique, or practical ways to use Google Wave have you come up with or used? I thought it’d be cool if we could start some sort of list.

1.) Songwriting

Originally, I got this idea from Bob Kauflin, in a post about a large collaborative songwriting project he did with his church music team. Aside from being a part-time internet geek, I’m also a musician and songwriter. It’s pretty common to collaborate and to co-write with other folks for some projects that I do. My brother also writes too, and often times we just send a bunch of emails back and forth with revisions and edits. The email copies quickly accumulate.

Google Wave ends up simplifying this back and forth process a bit easier. Plus, it’s helpful to be able to playback the wave to see what revisions were made and the original copies of the song. Songwriting has become a great way to use Google Wave.

2.) Emergency management and response

I hadn’t really thought of this until the tragic Haiti earthquake. This has prompted discussion on how Google Wave can be used as a tool to coordinate a rapid response to a natural disaster.

For example, one idea is that people could make updates on the map gadget with information from their point of view or any needs in that area. Google Wave might not be “beefy” enough to handle something on such a large scale like the Haiti earthquake. Right now, for the situation in Haiti, a lot of people are just using Wave to post information about the earthquake and how people can respond to it.

I imagine that even a smaller scale one way you could use Google Wave is to coordinate responses in your own community for volunteer projects or community service projects.

3.) Overseas business meetings

This was my girlfriend’s idea. She works with an advertising company that works pretty closely with Google and occasionally has to work with clients that are overseas. In this case, Google Wave allows you to collaborate instantaneously over long distances and not have to worry about communication barriers with the help of Aunt Rosy the translation bot and other tools.

If you wanted to, you could add voice chat into the wave conversation too. For example, Ribbit has created an app that can do this, and I’m sure many other companies and developers will be following suit too in the future.

4.) Planning your next family event

What about using wave to plan your next big family reunion and get together? For families that are spread out across the country, this might be a good option.

Simply add all your family members to the conversation and they’ll be able to confirm, give an estimated time of arrival, make plans, let each other know who will bring the casserole, make a map of the location, and any other detail you might need to discuss.

5.) Writing an academic paper

In my last year of college, with a group of two other people, we had to write a lengthy group paper in response to a case study dealing with a controversial ethical issue. Because the issue was so controversial, we had different opinions and views going into the paper. So it was hard to try to get all of our ideas and thoughts out on the table and then try to organize them in a paper. It was quite a pain to try to have to update a Word document with your ideas, save it, send the most recent version in an email to my group partners, and then make sure only one person is working on the document at a time.

All to say, if Google Wave were out then, our project would have went a lot quicker. I expect and would hope to see Google Wave being used more in academia.

6.) Plan a group trip

Say you’re going on a trip with three of your other close friends. You can’t decide where you want to go or when you want to go. You can use Google Wave as a way to share trip ideas, share pictures of locations, make a map and put some markers on it of places you want to visit, and make your very last minute plans.

You could even do this one in combination with planning your next family event.

7.) Coding

My Waver friend David Cook has been raving about using Google Wave for coding on his blog recently. While I personally haven’t tried it out, he swears it to be the best use for Google Wave right now. If you’re looking to give it a try yourself, Syntaxy is an extension that does syntax highlight for a variety of programming languages.

This is just a start. What are your ideas for using Google Wave or what ways have you used Google Wave?

Go ahead. Don’t be shy. Share them with us.