The Wave is here!




Yes it's been a long time since I have posted but I have been busy with fitness and work.

A few months back, Google Wave hit the web. It's supposed to be an HTML5 application. Well I was really apprehensive about something new from Google. Agreed Google makes the most coolest of products but what I was really thinking was - Do we need another communication medium on the web? I mean we have discussion boards, forums, email, voice chat, social networking and more..

Do we really need this 'Google Wave' ?

There was a lot of buzz happening with this being an invitation only account and everything. But for those of us without invitation, there was just a long one hour video. So this Sunday I decided what the heck lets watch it. It's a pretty long video but trust me its worth watching every second of it.

Here's my take on what Google Wave is:

Google Wave as they have said is a 'communication object' . It's pretty much like a combination of an email and a document. It has all the neat features of commenting, sharing and adding media, links and other waves. What's more exciting is that this wave is nothing like a traditional email and document. You can add photos, to the wave.
What's pretty remarkable is that a wave can be edited collaboratively and is live. What I mean by collaborative is that multiple people can edit this document object at the same time and you on your screen can actually see this! Who is editing what part of the document character by character. It could replace all Instant Messaging apps - You no longer wait for the actual reply to come while you are staring at your IM which says 'Aditya is typing' You can actually see what I am typing before I press done. How cool is that!

Here's a screen of how Google Wave Client looks like. (Taken from wave.google.com)

You can playback a wave which basically plays all the edits, comments etc.. that happened to the wave. It's like a revision control system but very visual.

The most coolest part which I found were the extensions. Google promises that all your apps will be first class citizens of wave. Now that's a big promise. The video shows extensions for Google Search, Bug tracking(really interesting), language translators to name a few. The extensions to social networking sites is also great.

Google also is promoting wave as a protocol. Check out more details here

In addition Google Wave servers can be installed in your organizations and clients customized to suit your requirements. These waves would be inter operable and can be transmitted to other organizations which have Wave Services.

Google Wave is the next generation of communicating on the web. Google calls it a Product, Platform and Protocol. It's live, it's collaborative and it's the coolest thing to hit the Internet in a long time. Check out the video of Google Wave here.

So if you don't have a wave account ask your friends to invite you or request for one ASAP.


Finally I would like to answer the question what I asked above. Do we really need Wave? - I would say YES! It will save time, increase productivity and get the world closer than it already is.

I leave you with one of the most famous quotes (tweaked) of my favorite movie -
' Unfortunately no one can be told what the Wave is, You need to experience it yourself' - So go watch the video :)


Comments

Marten said…
For web conferences you should try http://www.showdocument.com ,
I recommend it for online collaboration in a web-based platform.
-Josh
November 22, 2009 at 5:18 AM
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