The release of Google Buzz adds another new step in the ongoing evolution of online communication.  And I hope you’ve been paying attention to the evolution so far.

Buzz, along with Google’s other recent release Google Wave, add real-time communication to traditional email inboxes in ways that, quite frankly, most people will fail to grasp for some time yet.

These new Google releases are part of a long running change in the consumer side of online communications.  Looking back 10 years the average web user had email, newsgroups, and basic instant messaging, all performed on their computers.

Today we have blended platforms such as Facebook that include email-style messaging, real time chat, and broadcast communications such as status updates.  In addition to this more and more content is shared in non-text formats.  Photos and videos are exchanged between friends as often as written messages are.  Business deals are done on Twitter.  And no one ever complained that a sales pitch was too short.

Business communications are charting a similar, but slower evolution.  Email quickly replaced much of our phone and fax communications and became a collaborative workspace, albeit a highly inefficient one.

In recent years collaboration has moved out of the inbox and into document management systems and intranet workspaces.  Faxes go directly to electronic records management systems instead of being dropped on our desk.  And telephony systems are integrating with our real-time communications servers to make voicemail and presence data available to us at our desks or on our mobile devices.Email once made long distance business possible without great expense.  Email put customers within reach of sales people without having to endure the cost and inconvenience of long distance travel.  Now with computing power and bandwidth both inexpensive commodities the long distance face to face meeting has arrived in the form of video conferencing.

Email is fast becoming a time sink, the preferred communications medium of the old guard but too slow and cumbersome for the next generation of business leaders currently learning how to communicate quickly and easily online.

As we roll out the latest enterprise email servers with their amazing new features are we simply delaying the inevitable?  At some point will the generational weight of the workplace tip in favour of those who prefer fast, efficient communications?

At what point will the role of the email server shrink to merely being the place where meeting invites and document workflow alerts are sent?  Will the email administrator disappear?  Or will they evolve into the communications administrator, overseeing the voice, instant messaging, conferencing, and collaboration systems instead?

Will this evolution simplify and improve our business communications?  Or will it add complexity that requires a class of expert not common in today’s industry?  Maybe that complexity will keep us with the systems we use and understand today, at least for a little longer.

On the bright side, at least I’ve never been in a video conference that got interrupted by spam.