Google are in the process of developing Google Wave – it will be released later in 2009. According to Lars Rasmussen (Software Engineering Manager for Google who, with his brother Jens, developed Google Maps) on the official Google blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/went-walkabout-brought-back-google-wave.html) ‘… two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the ’60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point.’
They came up with Google Wave. ‘… in Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.’
What a mouthful!
I’m currently trawling my way through theLONG video (http://wave.google.com/ or below) – have a look yourself and have a think …
… is Google Wave going to make the spectacular changes to communication that Google expect it to?
… will you be signing up? Why/not?
