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Without a doubt, the product that has the entire web buzzing right now is Google Wave, the search giant’s newly announced communication platform. Earlier this week, we brought you detailed information on the new Google product in our article Google Wave: A Complete Guide, but now we want to explore exactly why everyone is so excited about Google Wave.

You’ve probably heard people talk about Google Wave being a game-changer, a disruptive product, or maybe even as an email killer. But while keywords and phrases like these grab people’s attention, they don’t explain why or how Google Wave could be a paradigm-shifter. In this article, we explore these questions by highlighting some of Google Wave’s most unique and promising features. By exploring these features, we can better understand the potential of this new technology.

1. Wiki-style functionality

The feature: While Google Wave works a lot like email or IM, there is a huge difference: you can edit not only your messages, but the messages of anybody within your wave. You can reply to messages within a conversation string and reorganize conversations.

Why it’s game-changing: There was a perfect example of how this changes communication during Google’s demo of the product. A group of people are trying to plan a group dinner, and want to see who can come or not. In email, you have a string of emails with yes or no, which can get messy.

In Wave, you can edit the original message with a section with who can or cannot go. Replies can be made within a conversation string, rather than at the end, making conversations a great deal easier to track.

2. Wave Extensions

The feature: Wave extensions are 3rd-party improvements or applications within Google Wave. There are two types: gadgets and robots. Gadgets are just like Facebook applications, so you can run an app like an online game or a project management tool from within Wave. Robots are smart, automated conversation participants. They can detect keywords and respond, bring in outside information from services like Twitter, and more.

Why it’s game-changing: It’s game-changing just as the Facebook platform or the Twitter application boom has been paradigm-shifting for both companies. Imagine only needing to have Google Wave open to manage your Facebook, Twitter, project management, email, and even your video games. You can make Google Wave your all-in-one communication tool.

3. Drag-and-drop file uploads

The feature: In email, you have to search for files, and then attach them before sending. Then you need to open them up when you actually receive the email. Google Wave ignores that entire process by allowing users to drag files from the desktop and dropping them. Anyone can then see the files as they’re being uploaded. Images are shown in an album format, music can be played, and docs can be quickly shared

Why it’s game-changing: Drag-and-drop file uploads makes Google Wave not only a communication platform, but a useful project management system. Companies could use Google Wave as their communication and file-sharing platform. Combined with Wave Extensions, you could build an entire project management platform and time management system better than anything on the market.

4. Wave Embeds

The feature: Wave Embeds is just like what it says - you can embed any wave onto a website. Embeds can be customized and used for a multitude of purposes.

Why it’s game-changing: Embedding is not only an easy way to share conversations with millions of people, but is in fact a way to replace a lot of forms of communication. Instead of a chatroom, you can add a Wave on your company’s website and do customer service through it. Instead of static comments, imagine real-time conversations via Waves. Conversations are easily shared with embeds.

5. Playback

The feature: If you’re added to an email conversation late into the game, it can be a pain to parse all of the back-and-forth within an email conversation. With Wave’s playback feature, you can actually see how the entire conversation developed from the start, making it incredibly easy to catch up on conversations.

Why it’s game-changing: Playback clarifies any conversation and makes it simple to get anyone up-to-speed. Instead of “check your email,” it will become “just playback the wave” and you will have all the information that you need. You could get someone up-to-speed within minutes, rather than hours.

6. Open-source

The feature: Google Wave is not only extendable, but is an open-source project. This means two big things. First, developers can build their own version of Google Wave. Second, Google Wave can be hosted on your own server - just like an Exchange email server.

Why it’s game-changing: You may not think of open-source as a feature, but this may be the most important aspect of Google Wave. Open-source code fosters innovation by allowing developers to improve and correct code. Developers have the freedom to create a Wave server for their company or to create a branded version of Wave.

Open-source is central to Google’s strategy to foster quick adoption. And if people start using or even switching over to Google Wave, then it could very well be the game-changing communication tool that everyone has been waiting for.

Reviews: Facebook, Google, Google Wave, Twitter

Tags: Google, Google Wave

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I’m inadvertently watching the MTV Movie Awards…but not on TV. Rather, I just stumbled upon many of the live streamed versions, in which TV viewers set up a camera in front of their TV screens and stream live to a worldwide web audience. The quality is terrible, and it’s a raw deal for MTV too.

Despite the drawbacks, there are at least two reasons these feeds take off: limited access to these shows globally and a chance to chat about the show with web friends in real-time. If you weren’t able to tune in to the UK screening of Britain’s Got Talent, for instance, there was a popular livestream on Justin.tv.

So as more than 1100 concurrent viewers flock to one of many livestreams of the MTV Movie Awards, TV networks need to act: rather than underestimating their viewing figures (and thus missing out on ad revenue) thanks to the popularity of web streams and live chat, the networks need to embrace this new trend and offer official streams on Ustream, Justin.tv, or - even better - using white label services like UStream’s Watershed or Livestream’s Procaster.

The demand for live web streaming of popular shows won’t decrease, but while it’s tempting to close down these streams, networks can instead embrace the technology and serve up a far better product. Don’t expect these to be globally available, of course: national and international TV licensing restrictions are bricks in a wall that will be slow to crumble…but ultimately, do the networks want shows that are watched live by millions of viewers, or hundreds of millions?

Reviews: ustream

Tags: mtv, mtv movie awards, ustream

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By the end of the night on March 2, 2009, new “Late Night” host Jimmy Fallon had scored big, attracting 2.9 million viewers— a full million more than his competitor in the time slot, Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson. It was one of the best debuts in recent memory for a late night show, beating Ferguson’s 2005 premiere, and Jimmy Kimmel’s debut on ABC in 2003 (in a time slot a half hour earlier). Fallon’s ratings have leveled off a bit in the three months since his debut, but he’s still managed to win his time slot in 53 of his first 55 nights, and holds a 69% ratings advantage over Ferguson in the valuable 18-34 year old demographic.

One of the reasons Fallon might be doing so well, so quickly, is his superior use of social media compared to his competitors.

Jimmy Fallon and Social Media

Though he has active profiles on a number of social networks, it is Twitter where Jimmy Fallon has focused most of his attention. Fallon is currently one of the most followed people on Twitter, with just over a million followers. Being able to attain such a large number of followers has clearly been easier due to his popularity on television and his mentions of Twitter on his show, but Fallon began ramping up his Twitter usage prior to the show’s debut. On March 2, when “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” hit the airwaves, Fallon had just over 176,000 followers, according to Twitterholic, which was about 170,000 more than he’d had two months before.

How did he build up such a massive audience on Twitter so fast? Part of it certainly had to do with his name recognition as a former “Saturday Night Live” cast member, but in a large part Fallon’s social media savvy is what has helped him become the king of late night — at least on social media channels.

In January, when Twitter’s traffic was about 25% of what it is today and largely made up of a more tech-oriented audience, Fallon began making key appearances on web sites whose users are generally active in social media. His CES video with Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky received over 100,000 views, for example, and a week after that he appeared on geek-favorite web video show Diggnation. Later, Fallon invited Diggnation hosts Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht on his show as guests during its first week, and helped turned a random audience member into a Twitter star (that person’s follower count went from 7 to over 30,000 in just a couple of days). He also won the 2009“Webby Person of the Year” award for being the celebrity who is “most actively engaging with his audience online.”

That sort of embracing of social media has likely helped Fallon build a base of loyal fans in the early days of his career as a late night talk show host, and it has certainly helped him maximize his exposure online, which could be very valuable down the road as more eyeballs shift from the television screen to the computer screen. Because make no mistake, that is slowly happening. In February, Nielsen — the company that measures TV audience numbers — released their first-ever web TV rankings, because as Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank said, people are “using the web like it’s a giant DVR.”

The Shifting Sands of Media

Starting this week, when Conan O’Brien takes over for late night leader Jay Leno in the 11:30 PM time slot, Fallon will face a major test. While Conan will likely have a solid debut, due to his successful track record and a curious look-in audience, TV pundits don’t think he’ll be able to consistently match his predecessor right away. That means a smaller lead-in audience for Fallon, and that could test his social media smarts in a big way as he looks to other means of pulling in an audience.

But the real story here is the sea of change in how people are consuming media. It is no longer mainstream media that must validate social media, but rather social media that is influencing what we see in mainstream channels. In April, when actor Ashton Kutcher became the first person to cross the million follower mark on Twitter — a moment in time that, at least symbolically, marks Twitter’s arrival in the mainstream — Mashable’s Pete Cashmore wrote that social media is very close to no longer needing validation from the mainstream.

“Mainstream media is increasingly becoming an echo of social media, allowing YouTube’s masses to define what matters (Susan Boyle, the Domino’s Pizza scandal) and mirroring that public sentiment,” he wrote. “For now, Twitter needs mainstream media more than mainstream media needs Twitter. But Ashton has an audience of 1 million at his fingertips: how much longer will the talent need its mainstream middleman?”

And that’s very much the point. Though by traditional TV ratings “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” is a third place show, he’s laying the groundwork for a media future in which social media reach matters big time. His competitors, meanwhile, still don’t really get it. Fallon is the only person on late night TV with a significant, personal investment in social media. David Letterman, late night’s number two player, even recently admitted that he just doesn’t “get” Twitter. He and the rest of the cadre of late night talk show hosts will continue not to get social media at their own peril.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Palto

Reviews: Mashable, Twitter

Tags: conan o’brien, craig ferguson, david letterman, jay leno, jimmy fallon, jimmy kimmel, late night, late night tv, nielsen ratings, ratings, social media, television, tv, twitter

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Hat tip to PSFK for surfacing the video below of venture capitalist Fred Wilson speaking at Google as part of its Marketing Talks series. Wilson breaks down the “capital efficiencies” that give many startups a competitive advantage and analyzes how certain industries that can be digitized are especially ripe for disruption.

And in the video below Wilson makes the argument that everything is a channel and the next layer of the “social media stack” will be aggregation and filtering capabilities. He mentions TweetDeck  as a sort of social dashboard, and while it is, that’s really a rudimentary example. It seems FriendFeed is the closest to pulling together the various services needed to filter and aggregate effectively. And I saw a Tweet recently from Steve Rubel that mentioned how FriendFeed is really the only service that can search your friends’ content. At least on the consumer side.

FriendFeed-like services behind the firewall is a little different story. The things you’ll see in Telligent’s upcoming release will validate that only a few collaboration vendors have a vision for what the real-time web looks like in a corporate setting.

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From Google Wave to Susan Boyle, social media has been in full swing this week. Both Google and Microsoft decided to launch new products, while the social media starlet Boyle sang her heart out on the finale of Britain’s Got Talent. There has been no shortage of social media buzz.

We also served up a fresh round of web resources. Want to learn about how to create great Twitter backgrounds? Or perhaps you want to find out everything there is to know about Google Wave? Well, we have you covered with our top 12 social media stories of the week:

1. Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication? - Google announced Google Wave this week during the Google I/O conference. Is it the next step in web communication?

2. HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds - I explain why you should create a personalized backdrop and go step-by-step with the information, tools, and inspiration you’ll need to make a killer background.

3. Google Wave: A Complete Guide - This in-depth guide covers the basics of Google Wave, the terminology associated with it, and more on Google’s newest product.

4. Bing: Microsoft Launching New Rival to Google? - We started getting word this week that Microsoft was launching a completely new search engine. Sure enough, Microsoft did not disappoint.

5. Susan Boyle: Final Performance - This week has been filled with the social media phenomenon Susan Boyle. Will she fade away or will the web take her to stardom?

6. 85 Comedians to Follow on Twitter - Cameron Chapman highlights dozens of amazing comedians to bring a little laugher into your Twitter feed.

7. Twitter to Facebook: 5 Ways to Post to Both - Jennifer Van Grove explains in detail the many ways and tools available for posting updates to both Facebook and Twitter.

8. Top 20 YouTube and Video Memes of All Time - Both the web and world culture have been impacted by viral videos. Learn about some of the most memorable videos to ever hit the web.

9. Juste Twitter Scam - Facebook and Twitter were hit yet again with phishing scams this week. While Twitter was dealing with Juste (dot) ru, Facebook had its hands full with the Goldbase (dot) be scam.

10. Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant? - Adam Ostrow explores the possibility that social media is replacing aspects of the company website, using Kobe Bryant and Vitamin Water as an example.

11. 10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter - Josh Catone goes in-depth with ten unique tools that help share your favorite tunes via Twitter.

12. Justin.tv: Our Users Upload More Video Than YouTube Users - While YouTube claims that more than 20 hours of video per minute, Justin.tv touts 22 hours of video created every 60 seconds. Adam Ostrow dives into the numbers.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewJohnson

Tags: social media

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Less than two weeks ago, we brought to your attention 10 unique and fun easter eggs within Wolfram Alpha, the new computational knowledge engine that calculates answers based on your queries. You the readers though did your own sleuthing and found ten even better Wolfram easter eggs.

And while that may have seemed like the end, it was not. You also suggested a couple of iconic cultural references that you wish Wolfram Alpha could answer. Well, the all-knowing computational machine was listening to your comments on Mashable. In fact, because of Mashable comments, there are at least 10 new easter eggs within Wolfram Alpha. Let’s take a look at them now:

Have more suggestions for easter eggs? Add them to the comments. Wolfram Alpha may just be reading!

1. How long is a piece of string?

At least Wolfram Alpha tries to comfort and reassure you. Wait…do we want that?!

2. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

One of the commenters in our original article pointed out an actual study that quantified how much wood a woodchuck could actually chuck. And now, Wolfram Alpha, can tell you that an average woodchuck could chuck 361.9 cubic centimeters of wood every day.

3. What do men/women want?

Wolfram Alpha knows us way too well…or maybe not well enough. What do you think?

4. Where’s Waldo?

Wait, not even Wolfram Alpha knows where Waldo is? Waldo is a master of disguise…

5. Where did I put my keys?

You have to smile at this answer.

Bonus: Dude, where’s my car?

6. Where the hell is Matt?

You have to watch the accompanying viral video in order to appreciate this easter egg. It’s also one of the most inspiring videos on YouTube, so it’s worth your undivided attention:

7. Are you a PC/Mac?

Wolfram Alpha finally tells us who it favors in the Mac vs. PC wars. Actually, it took a cop-out. Smart of you, Wolfram Alpha.

8. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Wolfram Alpha can answer even the great conundrum.

9. When is Judgment Day?

…shouldn’t we all be dead? Thank you for saving us, John Connor (for now).

10. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

Carmen is a sneaky, sneaky gal. I sort of want to pull out my old CD roms now.

Why does Wolfram Alpha have easter eggs anyway?

Easter eggs may all be fun and good, but is there a practical purpose to adding these cultural tidbits to a computational machine? Actually, according to Dr. Stephen Wolfram, there is. He answers that question and more in a one-on-one interview ith us. So be sure to check out Wolfram Alpha Approaches 100 Million Queries [Interview] for the answer to that question and many more.

And once you’re doing learning about Wolfram easter eggs, don’t forget to suggest a couple more in the comments. After all, Wolfram Alpha listened last time, who’s to say it won’t add a few more?

Reviews: Mashable, YouTube

Tags: easter eggs, wolfram alpha

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Retweeting is one of the best ways to share content on Twitter: as we mentioned in our article HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter, there are dozens of new tools to help you share Tweets in this way.

A new service, Retweet.it, aims to create an exchange for retweets: for every two tweets you retweet from users of the site, you get one RT in exchange. In other words, it’s doing for retweets what TwitterHIT did for Twitter followers. Personally, I’m not a fan.

Retweeting is supposed to be about sharing content because it’s interesting and your followers will get value out of it. Rwtweet.it changes that motivation: now you’re rewarded for tweeting stuff that might be of no interest to you or you followers: you’re just doing it for the reciprocation. Just like with TwitterHIT, I think it’s a dangerous precedent: if such services get traction, the term “RT” will go from meaning “here’s a valuable tweet” to simply another form of Twitter spam.

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: tweet, twitter

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If you see a link to “juste (dot) ru” on Twitter today, don’t click it.

The flipside of social media’s ability to rapidly spread content is that scams, viruses and malware spread at a much faster rate: from the trusted connections that allow Facebook scams to propagate, to the abundance of Twitter issues in recent months.

Today’s scam: a video site called “Juste.ru” (do not visit this site) has successfully spread thousands of spam links through Twitter. The messages read: “Best video:” followed by a link to juste.ru. Users who clicked this link are reporting that their accounts are then used to Tweet the link without their knowledge, implying that the site steals Twitter credentials. Twitter itself has just put out a warning to avoid the links, which are malicious.

Bottom line: avoid clicking any links on Twitter to “juste (dot) ru”, and if you find your account posting these links, run a full virus/malware/spyware scan, change your Twitter password and clear your browser cookies.

Reviews: Twitter

Tags: juste, scam, twitter

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Mark Ghuneim, (@mediaeater) is the Founder/CEO of digital marketing agency and technology incubator Wiredset and social media tracking service Trendrr.

It’s no secret that the iPhone has taken the mobile marketplace by storm in the last 18 months. With good reason, it is indeed a quantum leap forward for consumers, developers and the entire industry. Here is a quick look at awareness and engagement levels of the iPhone when measured against competitors and cousins in the Apple family.

In terms of engagement, one of the best ways to identify how much a brand is mobilizing evangelists is to take a look at conversations. When compared to other mobile devices, the iPhone holds a clear advantage when it comes to chatter. As you can see below, despite the fact that there are over 50 million BlackBerries sold to iPhone’s 17 million, the latter clearly has a more passionate following among the Twitter set.

Here is another look by the hour that includes “Android.” Notice, the Palm Pre averages only 100 and is starting to heat up in anticipation of its release on June 6th.

To give you a sense of how iPhone stacks up against the iPod and Mac brands, here is a look at Twitter buzz for the year. The huge spike of 90k tweets in a day for iPhone came when Apple gave the first sneak peek of OS 3.0 on March 17th. “Mac” saw its peak so far this year of 32k posts on April 20th with the release of the new “get a Mac” ads and peaked at 24k the day it unveiled the iPod shuffle on March 11. What’s interesting is the slow and steady upwards progression all of these products enjoyed after their peaks.

In the Blogosphere the topic of mobile has grown overall. Here is a mash-up of iPhone vs BlackBerry and the Palm Pre. With over 80,000 results for iPhone via Google, there are now 4 blog posts for every iPhone on the market. While the Palm Pre numbers may look small in relative fashion, the blog buzz for them has grown dramatically from under thousands of results to near 20 million since the first of the year. Similarly, BlackBerry’s blog halo has grown to near thirty million, up 25 million since January.

On a daily basis, each of the mobile companies see a healthy dose of daily publishing, with the iPhone still doubling the competition.

More iPhone resources from Mashable:

- 5 of the Best iPhone Apps for Political Junkies

- Star Trek on iPhone: 11 Apps for the Ultimate Movie Experience

- 8 Fantastic Free Business Card Apps for the iPhone

- 5 Great iPhone Apps for Pet Owners

Reviews: Google, Twitter

Tags: android, blackberry, iphone, Mobile 2.0, Palm Pre

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Note: you can try out Mashable’s fTag page and chat with Mashable readers here.

Twitter hashtags are great, but sometimes it’s hard to track conversations around a tag simply by using Twitter search.

That’s where new service fTag comes along…it attempts to replace the hashtag with an “ftag” (a word with an underscore before it) and pulls together all those tagged Tweets into a single stream on the site. It also lets you contribute to the stream from the fTags site itself. So whether you want to talk about Lost Dogs, or Global Warming, or Mashable, fTags provides a place to do it.

It’s a neat idea with one (potentially big) vulnerability: the obvious next step for Twitter to challenge Facebook would be to launch Twitter Groups, single pages built around hashtags. Twitter hasn’t been adding these obvious features due to issues simply keeping the site online, but if they did make the addition, fTag and the many similar products around would likely disappear.

Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter

Tags: ftag, twitter

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