Google Wave Preview

I must admit that I'm pretty hyped about the upcoming Google Wave. After seeing the video preview and some screenshots I realized how primitive are the communication tools that we are using, and how far advanced could user-interaction be, in Lars Rasmussen's words: "...if email was invented today."

It looks like Google is really decided to release an online all-in-one application that will run on the browser, with all the data being stored in the cloud. It will be a long road to travel but Google started with the right foot. Wave will open a closed beta of their system on September 30. With an official release later this year.


Given its wide range of possible applications and flexibility, it may not happen very fast but I am sure that it will certainly replace email and IM over time.

What is Google Wave?

Google Wave is a communication tool that will enable users to interact in different ways, taking advantage of the best of each of the current systems. Imagine the best features of email, IM, document edition, search and social networking, and try to mix them into one single product that allows you to do all of the above. And now imagine if that product was open source and any company could host it, without it being tied to one mega corporation. And also imagine being able to be able use it cross-platform, cross-server and for free. If you can imagine all that, you begin to have an approximate idea of what Google Wave is.



Using traditional technologies when you need to communicate with somebody over internet, you would do one of two things: 1) If that person is online then you would IM that person. 2) If not, you would use email to communicate and wait until that person checks email. Google Wave eliminates that differentiation. When you need to communicate you start a new Wave, an object that is remotely stored in the server and will handle your interaction and the activities associated to it. You will also add people to the Wave, and those would represent the recipients of the email or IM. The recipients are not online? it doesn't really matter, Waves are stored in the server and anyone of the people involved in it can see it from any device that uses the Wave protocol.

Google came up with this amazing idea of mixing all forms of communication together and making them one. But what makes it so amazing?
Well, nearly all the communication methods that you can imagine are available for your Waves, you can embed maps on them, videos, links, search results, images, collaborative edition. They are not separate services anymore, they are all ready to use within your Wave and you can get them in and share them with no more than a few clicks.

Google Wave Highlights

Open Protocol

You won't need a Google account to use Waves, by the time it is released it will be an open and well documented protocol that any development company can use to set up a Wave server. You will be able to send waves to anyone and your messages will not be stored in the Google farms. This independence also ensures the fact that a lot of interfaces will be built for it, and it will not be attached to one operating system, browser or specific hardware. Soon you will see it integrated to most social network systems, email and IM clients.

Enhanced Talk

Google Waves introduces "responding in context", when you receive a reply you will no longer get a copy of the previous message as a block of text as if it was email. Actually, messages are no longer plain blocks of texts, with Wave your messages will be true objects that can be analyzed, parsed, modified and displayed in many several ways. This improves interaction between people by reducing the gap between a real conversation and a virtual conversation.

You can respond to a certain part of the conversation only, and respond to the rest in a different message. The UI will display the responses and organize them accordingly.

Improvements in messaging systems, widgets and extensions

Have you seen the preview yet? no? go check it out! I'll mention a few that you can see in that video:

• conversation history,
• on the fly spell checking,
• dictionary suggestions,
• on the fly text transmission and language translations,
• games,
• integration with Media, Maps, and other services,
• instant image transmision, automatic thumbnail generation and transmission on a different connection thread

What makes all this worth is the fact that they are pushing us forward. Every step being made is for our benefit and I will be very glad to see this technology working on my computer soon.

Keep it up Google!