On the day that Skype announced a new version, completely with screen sharing cross platform-wide (although the new version was only released for Windows), the Big G went one step further and announced Google Wave.
Jens and Lars Rasmussen, creators of Google Maps, discovered that in our modern era online communication the A and O is but still leaves lots to be desired, so they started a new project based on actual restrictions:
- Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
- Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
- What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers’ current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?
After two years of development, Google Wave was born.
What is Google Wave? Let’s not beat around the bush but face things as they _really_ are: Google Wave is the next big thing. It will cook your potatoes, boil your eggs, chop your trees and slice tomatoes for you. Google Wave will become the Rolls Royce of the internet. The whole world wide web and some more agree.
What is Google Wave exactly?
More than being a new and powerful communication tool, it seems that the Big G finally found a way to implement all their services in one and are moving closer and closer to becoming the ultimate home page, online OS even. With a strong Developer API, this mix of further developed GTalk, Google Docs, Google Maps and so much more has potential. Lots of potential. Will it replace your homepage? Will Google Wave become more than ‘a wave’. Probably.
As a new open source service with API everything is possible. The integration of both Google FriendConnect and Google Latitude seems a logic step, immediately bringing Google Wave potentially up to a level ready to compete with Facebook and Myspace. If well executed Google Wave has the potential to become omni-present and compete with all the other social networking sites/platforms. Also thanks to the open API.
A release date has not been announced yet, but Google Wave is available as Developer Preview already. Let the waiting for one of the probably biggest internet hypes commence.
Update: Here’s the official Google I/O Wave Announcement video.
Originally posted on May 28, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
We love the looks of it…
What will the future hold… with Wave on every device…?
Come discuss Wave with us at http://DiscussWave.com
I can not express how much I want this. This will be a HUGE leap for project collaboration for my company and companies I work with. I wish this would come out soon because I have some huge projects I am getting ready to start, but I doubt it will be out by the time they will finish.
No matter, there will be future projects that where this will be unimaginably valuable. Co-authoring project documents, dropping screens, creating a project history record, and much much more. Funny thing is, 2 weeks before I found out about it, I was starting to draw out specs for something like it. My ideas were no where near this complex though.
After work uses, there is personal use. Facebook and MySpace no longer are of value to me for my social life, they just changed in ways that focused more on profit and less on being a quality social network. This is just one of many things I am looking forward to right now.
After watching the video presentation I could not understand why there it’s no more buzz about wave, even the audience during the presentation showed little emotion. This it’s a gigantic leap for web interaction, collaboration, sharing and editing work, and communication evolution as a whole. Play a game watching and sharing same view on screen, instant reaction to commands, the list will go on and we Know so little yet. How about Rose, the beauty of initiating communication on one language while response it’s received in the language of choice of receiver, only 40 languages at presentation time for Rose, surely that number will increase. The features are all amazing, more so to consider that Google has made this open source. To think Wave will replace most home pages it’s not a far fetch thought. I certainly would keep a close eye on the development of this product and when possible, make the recommendation for the implementation of it. Congratulations to the Google Team for an innovation.