Google Making Waves
Google is rocking the boat in the blogosphere with its latest announcement: Google Wave. I had a chance today to check out the video of a developer’s preview of the tool. It’s long — about 80 minutes — but it’s very clear and jam-packed with feature demos.
At first glance, Wave looks like an email and instant messaging hybrid built for the browser — but that’s just the beginning. Users can take their conversations and embed them into blogs and other websites with ease — and the conversations can be added to at the blog or the users’ account page. Users have a centralized place where they can add to conversations that are happening all over the web, “which will make flame wars so much more effective,” quips Lars Rasmussen, Software Engineer Manager, Google, and co-founder of the Wave team, in the video.
The tool has many other features, including:
– Drag and drop photo functionality
– Drag and drop friends into conversations
– Reply to specific portions of conversations
– Watch replays of how conversations developed (useful for those coming late to a discussion)
– Real-time conversation capability — to the point where you can watch your friends’ every keystroke
-And there’s more
Also interesting is a comment during the presentation’s introduction by Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering, Google, that those watching the demo will surely forget that they were watching a browser client — not downloaded software. And in my case, he was right. I was blown away when I realized that the tool is hosted elsewhere — like Gmail. The only capability that requires a download is the photo functionality, which requires downloading Google Gears.
On top of all this, Google Wave will be open sourced — allowing any developer to create new uses and features — which is huge. The feature set will likely explode after launch.
Ah, yes — launch. Did I forget to mention that this is not yet available to the public? If you’re interested, Google will notify you when Wave is ready to go live sometime later this year — as my colleague Sean Donahue noted last week.
The potential for businesses — and communication in the Web in general — is large. Businesses can have an easy, free way to communicate and collaborate on projects. And it will be much easier for the public to socialize and interact online — which might give a very large booster shot to Web 2.0 in its infancy. This is certainly worth keeping an eye on — and it’s Google — you know that ads will eventually be squeezed in somewhere.
