To celebrate the bright Web 3.0 cloud of Google’s release of its latest product, Google Wave, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the efficiency that is: Google. Too many people are ignoring technology that is freely available and is right at their finger tips in favor of something shinier and more expensive.

Meanwhile, Google is a great resource, for both law students and lawyers, bypassing all compatibility issues and can be used on a large (school-wide) and small (firms) scale.

The Calendar

	Share your schedule Let your family and friends see your calendar, and view schedules that others have shared with you.
	Get your calendar on the go Access your calendar from your phone using its built-in calendar or mobile browser.
	Never forget another event Get event reminders via email or have text messages sent right to your mobile phone.

While Outlook lets you color code your meetings, Google lets you create multiple versions, public views, and even integrate others’ calendars into your own as a one-stop-shop for you to find out what’s going on around you.

Professionals can create public calendars that are visible only to those within the firm and include dates for client visits, filing deadlines, meetings, interviews, trips, etc.  Law student organizations, journals, and student bar associations can create public calendars listing events, study groups, etc.  Faculty and staff can list holidays, exam dates, project deadlines, classroom changes, etc.

Add an element of interactivity by granting additional users’ access to post their own events to the same calendar.  One party sets a time and date, another party adds details, and another party includes the location.  This way, information is not only disseminated much quicker, but there’s greater collaboration among the masses.  In addition, like in Outlook, others can be invited to meetings and allowed to contribute information in anticipation of them.

And just in case you lose track of your own assignments in the sea of public and shared calendars, you can enable Tasks within the Calendar to separate out what you need to do – as opposed to what everyone is supposed to do.  This creates a column on the right side of your calendar that lists your personal assignments – add due dates and they are automatically integrated into the calendar.

RSS

Despite the plethora of law-related software, blogs, and newsfeeds that exist online, too many students and professionals have no clue what an RSS feed is or about its immense potential.  Not only do RSS feeds save time, but they help their readers stay ahead of the information curve by keeping them up-to-date on the newest happenings of the world.

Discovering a new website is always fun.  You decide that it’s interesting enough to warrant repeat visits and so you add it to your bookmarked list of sites and it becomes part of your clicking list, i.e., a list of sites in a long list of bookmarked sites that you regularly visit by clicking on one, reading through, clicking on the next, reading through, and so on.  But the internet is a big place, there will always be another new site that you stumble upon or is recommended to you – there will come a time when your bookmarked list of sites becomes just too big.

The solution is to migrate the list over to an RSS Reader.  And, what luck, Google has one of those.  Keep up with the latest in legal software, get updates on developing cases, and stay on top of popular legal trends – Above the Law, The Volokh Conspiracy, Social Media Law Student, etc.

Stay up to date Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content. Share with your friends Use Google Reader’s built-in public page to easily share interesting items with your friends and family. Use it anywhere, for free Google Reader is totally free and works in most modern browsers, without any software to install. Take a tour »

Gmail

While not the most social of Google’s media, it’s still worth a serious mention because it’s not just a means of communication.  It’s closer to being your personal secretary – but with less mistakes.  Instead of the usual “check email, read email, reply, repeat” you can, with a bit of set up work, have a self-sufficient communications system.  Freshly out of beta (though there’s a Lab feature to put the beta back), Gmail is the ultimate way for law students and professionals to keep track of the tremendously neverending flow of information.  And with over 7GB of space, you never have to worry about deleting messages for being over capacity.

Forward everything from all your other email addresses (school, work, additional personal ones) to your one Gmail account to instantly have a one-stop-shop for checking your messages.  Set up filters and labels to keep track of what email came from where and enable multiple inboxes to see more messages at one time.  Use more advanced searches to find the exact message you’re looking for.

Finally, it seems like every few weeks Google release a new set of Labs for Gmail.  Enable calendar & task views and now you don’t even need to open up another page to find out what you’re doing.  Students who receive class assignments via email can add them to their Tasks, which will automatically be added to their calendar.  Attorneys away from their computers can send themselves reminders (text message to email is always popular for those without iPhones or Blackberries) which can later be incorporated to do the same thing, i.e., added to their Tasks & Calendar.  Other Lab features, like the “Forgotten Attachment Detector” and “Undo Send,” are creations that worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Save yourself time and anguish by enabling these two gems and never again worry about looking unprofessional by accidentally sending the information in one email or forgetting to include a document.

Welcome to Gmail

A Google approach to email.
Gmail is built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful. And maybe even fun

Wave

The latest and greatest in Google technology.  It is real-time collaboration cloud software that enables simultaneous editing by multiple individuals.  Type something, add media to it, add other parties to it, discuss, comment, edit, and improve.  In the academic scenario, teams of students keep all their research in one place, delete ineffective material, insert their own contributions, and comment on the direction of the team project.  In a firm, attorneys can do the same thing with their cases; information can be revised to reflect as depositions and discovery come in.

As more parties become involved, they can instantly be included in the conversation.  With its nifty “playback” feature, users can see the order in which changes were made.  And while multiple users cannot edit a document at the same time, they can see in real time who is using it what changes they are making.

For those who are yet to experience Google Wave, don’t worry your time will come.  If you know someone who has it already, ask them for an invite.  If you don’t, then sign up for one.

Related posts:

1. Two Complete Google Wave Guides Available
2. 100 Google Wave Resources
3. When to use Google Wave
4. Google Scholar Search Now Includes U.S. Case Law and Legal Journals
5. How Cyber-Stalking Can Get You a Job
6. 60 Epic Sites
7. A Legal Perspective: Google Fast Flip
8. Your Private Parts and Behavioral Advertising
9. Digital Life after Death: Social Media and Your Digital Content Post Mortem
10. New Jersey Judiciary Now Tweeting