Google Wave
In a previous post, I outlined the slow but sure initiative on behalf of Google to step properly into the realm social networking.
As it turns out, just the other day at their I/O conference, Google unveiled their big guns in the social space – Google Wave.
Instantly blurring the aging lines between Email and Instant Messaging, and at once meshing the capabilities of wildly popular platforms like AIM, Flickr, Facebook, and Moodle, Google Wave has me floored. Messages are both real-time and persistent, and everything is versioned (which allows a newcomer any particular conversation to “replay” the entire sequence of modifications). Adding photos (and I’d imagine some other types of files) from your local machine to a wave is as simple as drag-n-drop. As conversations diverge and branch, and different people become active in different ways, Wave allows highly customizable, fine grained controls over each and every such branch. Collaboration on wave-d text happens inline, in real time, and can be distributed (and all is “replay”able)
The service requires no special browser plug-ins or client applications – just an active account, and standards compliant browser (taking heavy advantage of the provisions in the HTML5 spec). The Wave Federation Protocol is an Open Standard, and Google’s Wave Interface will be made Open Source (the API is already published – but still in flux). There is a rich extension environment and plug-in environment on both client and server sides. Google has already written several, including integration points with Google Maps, Twitter, and even – you might have to re read this once or twice – dynamic, real-time language translation.
Whatever Google says (or doesn’t say), I can just smell this interface being the preferred integration point among products like Gmail, Reader, Calendar, et. al. – even though there were no allusions to that being the case in the video. I would very highly recommend – if you’ve got an hour and twenty minutes to spare or not – watching the full presentation to get the whole story (can be found on the product home page). I’ll be waiting rather imaptiently for a chance to sign up. Kudos to the Google Maps brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen!