I do appreciate the usefulness of Twitter. I noticed that @ChrisBrogan was posting some tweets about GoogleWave today. I am experimenting with Wave to try and understand its potential. I have accounts on the public beta as well as the developers sandbox. I’ve built up quite a list of contacts who also have Wave accounts. That’s the first thing one needs in order for Wave to be of any real use.
One of Chris’ tweets was to a neat blog post by @deepakdas. The author shared his thoughts on Google’s “product proliferation strategy”. It reminded me of the old days when people talked about how Apple computers were in all the schools in hopes that student’s would graduate having experience with Apple and buy those over PCs. It also reminded of another strategy I had discussed several months ago. That one was focused on Starbucks Coffee.
I was sitting with a friend who works for a distributor that delivers product to Starbucks stores. My friend explained to me that Starbucks had a goal to (as she put it) “become your third place”. I’ve heard this same idea elsewhere, so I’m sure it is no secret and it may be a topic for various case studies. The basic premise is this:
We all spend time in various places. The top two places for most people are their home and their work. If you count the time spent sleeping, most people spend most of their time at home. And it is easy to see that where you work would be the next most common place for you to spend your time. There may be a third place which stands out as the place where you spend the next most significant portion of your time. The idea is that Starbucks wants you to be so comfortable meeting people or just hanging out at a Starbucks store.
Personally, I believe my church is my third place. But I must admit that Starbucks must be in my top ten. And at the same time, I think Google (Gmail, GoogleWave, Google Reader, etc.) is very likely my forth place. OK, so it is not a physical place, but it is where I spend a bunch of time. On the whole, Google is obviously trying to move up everyone’s list of “places” where we spend our time. They are adding services constantly and getting themselves inserted into as much of our on-line experience as possible. (Look at today’s announcement of Google’s Public DNS service)
So Twitter has once again led me to some valuable information on topics that I am already thinking about and trying to understand. I suppose that TweetDeck is another of my top 10 “places” where I hang out. I wonder how long it will be before Google tries to buy up Twitter. Or might they just find a way to assimilate it into Google Wave.
Where do Google and/or Twitter fall on your list? Your thoughts and comments would be appreciated.
de N9KJU 