Could journalism benefit from Google Wave when it hits the streets? This is what the L.A. Times believes could happen in a recent article in which they stated the following information to back up its claim:

For the last two months, while we’ve been testing the Google Wave developer preview, we have been talking amongst ourselves about how this thing could change (or add to) what we do. So, here’s a list of a few wild ideas we had for using Wave.

Collaborative reporting: You may notice that double bylines aren’t very common. That’s because trying to co-author a news story stinks.

Thanks to the openness of Wave, collaborative pieces between bloggers could become more common.

Record and archive interviews: As reporters conduct interviews and frantically jot notes day after day, we start to develop our own shorthand. To outsiders, it looks like some sort of alien language.

If Google connects its Voice calling service to Wave, we might be able to easily insert call recordings, voicemails and text messages into our notes.

Live editing: We love our editors (really, we do). But sometimes crucial things get changed that we miss in the final read-through and in rare cases, tweaked to inaccuracy.

Google Wave clearly marks updates to documents and lets you view a timeline of changes. Eventually — once Google adds the feature — users will be able to revert to a specific point in time. And the most passionate writers could watch live as editors tweak documents and respond to questions or changes

Discuss while you read: All of the Times blogs and many of stories on the website have areas where readers can log comments. These are just static message boards.

Wave lets users leave comments on particular paragraphs, sentences or words. This would allow readers to discuss passages as they’re reading along and clarify which sections they’re addressing.

There are other items listed in the article that you can read at the link below. But this is the gist of what the L.A. Times is thinking. Google Wave could turn into a tidal wave if, in fact, some of what the article states comes true. We could be in for a huge impact on how we interact with each other.

What do you think? Are you going to ride the Wave?

Comments welcome.

L.A. Times source.