So what happens if you launch a magazine on Google’s collaborative tool “Wave”? That’s the question consultant Bjarne Tveskov, a former LEGO designer, wanted to answer. He named the magazine “Bølgen,” which is Danish for “The Wave.”
“The idea was to create a shared space with some short articles and story bits to kick start conversation and co-creation. I also see “Bølgen” as a kind of “Third Place,” Tveskov told me by e-mail. “It is not as controlled and personal like a (group) blog, but it’s not quite a completely open free-for-all like a traditional wiki either.”
“I have been positively surprised by the amount of participation that happened right from the start. Many people simply wanted to try out Wave and there don’t seem to be too many regular places to ‘do stuff’ with Wave in the Danish part of the digital space. Often it’s a completely different experience to visit ‘Bølgen’ on a Friday when a new issue is released, compared to coming back on Monday when a lot of stuff has been added.”
Tveskov’s primary inspiration for topics comes from Twitter, where he also headhunts writers and tweets in order to drive traffic to “Bølgen.” Often those who comment are asked to write articles, and on Fridays when the magazine is launched it’s not unusual to watch articles change or being live-commented as you read them.
But Tveskov says he’s somewhat dissatisfied with Google Wave because it gets very slow and messy with an increased number of articles and comments.
“I don’t think “Bølgen” (or most Waves for that matter) scales well beyond 500 active users or so. But I’d rather be part of something being written and read by 500 super nice and super smart people than 5,000 people I don’t know,” Tveskov says.
The most impressive part of “Bølgen” may be that it has managed to attract such an active group of volunteer contributors right from the start. An important factor may have been that everyone was on new territory, which gave the entire project a beta-atmosphere in which everyone could contribute equally.
Also, Tveskov described his title as “janitor,” which gave the impression that this site wasn’t a place controlled by a gatekeeper, but a place with a helping facilitator.
Despite the fact that “Bølgen” is just an experiment with a small target group, it may provide inspiration for niche-publications, where readers are often just as knowledgeable and may be just as willing to participate and showcase their own knowledge.
“I cannot quite see the exact same type of shared writing and interaction happening on any other platform right now; maybe on some other type of WYSIWYG wiki-type tool,” Tveskov says.
“Bølgen” was not designed to bring in revenue, but 30+ readers have donated $20-50 American dollars each.
