Google wave made public just in time…
…for us to buck it. We’ve embraced and criticized Wave in the past during its beta phase, but it is now out of beta and open to all. Wave hasn’t caught on in the real estate industry quite like it could have, but the bottom line is that collaborative software isn’t a trend, it is changing the way businesses operate. Teams function better, communities run more smoothly and even customer service issues can be handled with tools like Google Wave.
That said, we’ve switched from Wave to what I believe is a better (and equally free) tool – Flowdock. Flowdock has a better user interface, is more intuitive, more private, offers tracking by tagging and even gives you a unique email address (so, say clients email you at youraddress@flowdock.com, it shows up in your Flowdock dashboard where you and your team can take notes on who is addressing it and what stage it is in).
Several AG writers helped me test out Flowdock and it has been a great way to swap files, ideas and have general conversation. I’ll let them opine in the comments, but I’ll simply say that we use it for AG and our personal business and love it!
AgentGenius.com is not affiliated with Flowdock.
I don’t think we’re totally writing off Google Wave, and I stand by the concept as a fresh and innovative way of collaborating and documenting. I’m still keeping my eyes on wave especially since it’s just now open to the public. Part of the issues with wave was no one really had access to it and finding others was an issue- let’s see what happens.
As for Flowdock, it’s pretty amazing, and I really like the interface and tagging and the ability to email the Flowdock directly. I think teams will truly find it useful as a cloud/mobile work station solution.
Benn – good point about the lack of access to wave impacting it’s adoption – or lack thereof.
I tried it out a few times, but had a hard time finding people who I both collaborated with and had wave. The # of invites just weren’t enough.
Thanks Lani for the great post!
I’m happy to hear you’ve already been using Flowdock for communicating with clients. We’ve got a few new cool features coming for easier email responsing and handling. Stay tuned.
OOOhhhh, thanks for the pointer to Flowdock. I am going to try it today. I’ve been on the hunt for a free tool that I can use for transaction management. I wasted an entire evening just last week surfing for a solution to no avail. Perhaps this will be the answer?
The way I’m doing transaction management is by assigning a tag which corresponds with the client, so for a listing, I’d tag #2371lakeview and then I can search by tag and see everything associated with it. LOVE FLOWDOCK!
I think Google’s timing is a bit off on this one. They made Wave public right about the time folks have decided not to use it. Most folks that might use it had already anyway.
This is nice, no need for the invitation. Since it is released to the public,more will utilize it now and maximize the online resources again.
Lani – thanks for the tool tip. I’m a recent convert to and a big fan of Highrise. Do you have an opinion if Flowdoc would supplement or replace Highrise?
I haven’t used Highrise before, I’ll have to look at it!
THANK YOU for the heads-up! Always looking to experiment with something new…
Yep, I am a fan of Google Wave, but I don’t think it could make magic now. One of the best feature of Wave is live blogging and I am personally embedding Wave in my blog. But average people are far from Wave even now….