Google Wave – 1
Posted by Godfrey Wilson on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009Why 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?
Tough questions! These questions have paved way for Google Wave. Jens Rasmussen and Lars Rasmussen wrestled over these questions since 2004. These geeks were the inventors of Google Maps and now they are ready to unleash Google Wave into the Internet. Google Wave comes in 3 layers. The product, platform and the protocol. Here, we will discuss Google Wave as a product.
Google describes Wave as “Equal parts conversation and document”. It is the next generation of e-mail. A Wave contains a complete thread of message saved in a common server. When this Wave is shared with other users, they can also get into edit mode. The interesting feature is that when a person is editing the wave, others will be able to see the edit process almost letter by letter. So this means that all of them will be able to collaborate in a wave almost instantly. Waves come with a rich text editor and several other functions that will enable the users to work on text, images, videos, maps and many more. Whenever a change is made on a wave, all the collaborators are notified. The complete history is stored within the wave.
Here is a screenshot provided by Google that gives us a first look.
Waves can therefore serve as e-mail and chat. It will work similar to wikis. The next layer ‘platform’ provides various APIs enabling waves to become a place where a group of people can work together to prepare documents, plan events, hold discussions, play games, etc. We will discuss about them in the next section.
One Response to “Google Wave – 1”
Post a Comment
-
Powered by Sociable!
I am not sure how useful collaborating letter-by-letter on an email is any useful. As I see it, the biggest issue with the current email system is the lack of security. Spoofing is easy and email text is sent in clear unencrypted. So it cannot really be used for transmitting confidential information or for legal purposes. A good starting step would be addressing these pitfalls.