Google Wave - the next evolution?
Jinfo Blog

26th October 2009

By Udo Hohlfeld

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Google Wave had lots of press and buzz since it was first announced back in May 2009. Google Wave is an in-browser communication and collaboration tool. Some say the technology is disruptive, some say it is useless. So what is it really? Can it be an evolutionary step of how we communicate in today's Web 2.0 times? From a functional view, Google Wave is a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. The concept aims at unifying various communication tools in a real-time environment and making any action contact centric. Actually, it seeks to accelerate any communication by automatically sharing any information across all media, e.g. written discussions are live, attachments are transferred immediately to all participants in a specific communication stream, etc. There is a broad range of features that show, what Google understands talking about a real-time communication platform: Natural language - autocorrect function, autotranslate function Easy file sharing - drag a file from your desktop and drop in Google Wave, every participant will have immediate access to this file Playback - you can playback any part of the communication Wiki inside - anything written within a Google Wave (i.e. a specific threaded conversation) can be edited by anyone else with access to this wave as all conversations within the platform are shared Real-time - instant availability of any information to any user in a wave By its openness and extensability, developers can build their own apps within waves. Building on open standards, this means that all the existing iGoogle or OpenSocial gadgets can be integrated with Google Wave, which gives the product directly a huge footprint in the market. A wave can also be easily embedded in blogs or on websites. Google Wave works with all current internet browsers: Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer. One just needs Google's new Chrome-Frame-Plug-in. Base technology is HTML5 and all waves are actually XML-documents. External applications, which Google calls "Robots" can be integrated, examples are "Tweety the Twitbot" to keep in control of one's twitter feed(s) or a robot of the search engine Wolfram Alpha. Free robots are available via the Google Code Labs. In September, Google Wave was released to 100.000 beta testers - if Google can hold up the hype around Google Wave and if it really will revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate will even after the beta test phase not be answered. We have seen many products from Google that stayed in beta and silently vanished from the scene. It is clear, that Google Wave is an interesting product, yet, it has to show the value for us the users and provide us with a convenient way to communicate and collaborate - one that adapts to our way of working and not forcing us to change our natural behavior. It is the users who decide on success or failure. Sources: Could Google Wave Redefine Email and Web Communication? - http://digbig.com/5bamsf Google Wave - what will it be? - http://digbig.com/5bamsj Google Wave Explained In Two Minutes - http://digbig.com/5bamsk Google Wave First Look - http://digbig.com/5bamsm How Google Can Make Money With Google Wave - http://digbig.com/5bamsn

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