Catch the (Google) Wave!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 11:39AM
"We set out to answer the question: What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?"
–Lars Rasmussen, co-creator of Google Wave
Google Wave launched today. Sort of. Google sent out 100,000 invites to folks who signed up right after it was announced, what they’re calling a “developer preview” or beta. I didn’t get one, and no one I know personally got one either, so that’s a bummer. Wait, let me back up, for those of you who don’t know what I’m even writing about.
Google Wave is a project started by a couple smart fellas that rethinks the way we communicate electronically. It does away with the back and forth of email and instead provides a constant, collaborative environment for communication. Conversations (“waves”) can happen in real time and are fully featured with multimedia capabilities. More than this, Google Wave is a framework for others to develop for. Google wants to make it easy for third parties to create apps and widgets that take advantage of Wave’s features and environment. It’s big picture, game changing stuff and it could have a massive effect on some pretty established workflows (imagine a world without emails) so a lot of folks are keeping a close eye on it. The plan is to have it released fully early 2010, but each person who receives an invite today will also have the ability to invite 8 others (what good is collaboration if you don’t have anybody to collaborate with, after all).
Personally, I’m pretty anxious to check it out. Google has an interesting track record with some major hits (Gmail) and some stinkers (Gtalk), but this might be winner, albeit one that requires a significant change of habits. Lifehacker has a good hands-on writeup today if you’re interested and want to learn more.
But never mind me, what about you? Are you willing to change the way you’ve always worked? What are the chances that this idea of constant conversation and collaboration overtakes traditional email communication? Is this something Microsoft will eventually emulate in Outlook? Does it make email obsolete?
Email, Google, Pop, Porter Novelli Seattle, Technology in Technology
Reader Comments (2)
I'm anxious to check it out as well. I think it will have a huge impact on how people communicate online. How is Goggle going to make any money from it though?
Ads, maybe? Or charge developers for access to the framework. Or premium features. No idea. Doesn't look like they've gotten that far.