Everyone do the Google Wave
Last week, Google unveiled its under-development Wave platform to an eager I/O audience. Google Wave is a Unified Communications Interface, designed to replace email as a collaborative tool. Think of combining google docs, email and instant messaging in one system, and you’re getting close.
Replacing email is a big claim. They point out that email was first used in 1965, predating the Internet itself, and has barely changed since the standards were codified around 1970. It is a one-to-many system that makes collaboration awkward, and branches of conversations can get lost and people can miss out parts. Some email applications (including gmail) artificially group emails into conversations, but this still relies on every individual messages being sent to everyone involved.
Wave changes that by focusing entirely on conversations, and working backwards from there. Through an email-style interface, you can view the conversations you are a part of, with each one showing as an single document, called a wave. Within a wave you can format text and embed images, videos and maps – much like the best online WYSIWYG editors. Read more
