Google Wave
Google Wave logo
First time I heard about Google Wave was after watching a hour long video in summer. I should mention that usually I look at these social events and new trends kinda sceptical, because I do not see a practical use of them. Who needs another chat-like tool? But this time, I felt intrigued of what Google have thought out.
Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless — in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
More about Google Wave. And a short video.
The main idea – to make something that could replace email – seems kinda unreal. Since I mainly use email for getting noticed rather than communication. I can not say how frustrating it is to make an understandable conversation with more than 2 people. I think that this is the best alternative for people to communicate without using any instant messaging programmes, because everything is instant, even the characters being typed are visible in real-time.
Google Wave is very useful for projects, especially with its feature to make richly formatted text, and the fact that you will not miss a message and will be always updated with everything that has happened, seems the strong point of this tool. The Playback button allows you to control conversation from start to end/current position.
Another thing that makes Google Wave so appealing is the extensions and gadgets which can be used in a wave. You can create a visual poll, play chess, plan a trip and many other things that greatly simplify communicating. Everyone can create their own gadgets and extensions helping Google to make the best online communication tool.
Another thing that I blew me away was that Google Wave would be a protocol, meaning that everyone could set up their own waving network. For example, a company could create a web page or a programme so that workers could communicate more efficiently with all the Google’s offered features. So this means waving could become as a standard for communication.
Only drawback that I could think of was – slowness. A wave with 100 people and more than hundred messages makes browser slow, which is something that bothers people with old computers, like me.
Overall, I think that Google Wave would be perfect replacement for email and instant messaging. I would very much like to have one program or web page with what I could do all the communicating I need. It seems stupid running email client, Skype and MSN, just so I could be reached. Only future will show how popular will Google Wave become. Anyway, Google has great ideas, but can they create something more than ‘just another way of communicating‘? I certainly hope so.
I wonder if after some years instead of ‘email me those documents’ we will say ‘lets wave with these documents’.
Give me a wave: niedric (at) googlewave.com
Tags: google, google wave