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Google Wave Coming Full Speed Ahead This September

2009-08-04 21:32:00

Google Wave has been getting a lot of attention and creating quite a commotion on the web in recent weeks. But what is Google Wave, exactly? What does it do, and what does it mean for you as a business or home user?

It's hard to describe exactly what Google Wave is, primarily because there is nothing like it. The reason why it is getting somuchattention is because it will revolutionize the way we communicate. Forget e-mail, forget "instant" messaging... the Google Wave is a real-time communication platform. The Google Wave developer Lars Rasmussen describes the idea of a wave best:

"A 'wave' is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

Some of Google Wave's highlights include:

• Open Source Coding: By having this source code available, Google is encouraging developers to improve on the Wave and make it even better.
• Applications: From real-time games to robots that spell check and translate in real-time. The sky is the limit for these apps, and since anybody developer can make them, there will be plenty to choose from.
• Real-Time Communication: Even more instant than "instant messaging", Google Wave transmits character-by-character, streamlining conversations and allowing you to formulate a response before they are even done typing. Thumbnails of images are even sent before the full image has been updated.
• Drag-and-Drop Functionality: Drag and drop images, audio, and other files from your desktop right into Google Wave, making file sharing a snap.
• HTML 5: Google Wave was developed in HTML 5, meaning it runs fully on your browser. Nothing to download, nothing to install, nothing to update. With the exception of the drag-and-drop functionality, everything will be run in your browser of choice.
• Blogs, Twitter: And other popular social networking sites work with Wave. You can post your Waves to Twitter, and even embed a Wave into a blog site - allowing others who use Wave to post comments in real time.
• Live Collaborative Editing: With the functionality of a wiki, e-mail, and instant messaging tool, Google Wave redefines collaborative editing. Multiple people could be looking at, editing, and having discussions about a particular document... all in real time.

The Google Wave could very well change how we view communication over the internet, making it even faster, easier, and more intuitive than ever before. Look for it to be coming out in September. We at Avallo are very excited for the release, and look forward to building and developing apps to make this powerful communication tool even more useful for our clients.

For more information about Google Wave, or to watch a video of the I/O demo, visit www.wave.google.com.

Julie