Recently, the tech world was caught by surprise by Google's announcement of Google Wave, a new communication tool that is set to revolutionize the web. While Google Wave won't be made public anytime soon, here are what you need to know about it before it is launch.
3 Key Features of Google Wave
According to the official announcement, Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web. Wave can best be described into three ways - it is equal parts conversation and document, it is shared, and it is live.
Wave will allow users to communication, collaborate and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps and possibly all other contents which can be uploaded online. The key term to remember here is that a Wave is shared. It is a public message which anyone can reply to, edit, and add participants anytime. Additionally, users can also rewind the Wave to see its historical pattern. And finally a wave is live. As such, users can converse and interacts with anyone faster. Think of it as an IM conversation on steroids.
3 Layers of Google Wave
Google Wave as an open source technology is open and extensible. Google encourages to partake of what it has to offer either through Google Wave's three layers - as a product, a platform and protocol.
The Google Wave Product is the web application that users like us can use to access and edit waves. It was built on Google Web Toolkit and is considered as an HTML 5 application. It features rich text editor, desktop function such as drag-and-drop.
Google Wave is also a platform composed of open APIs which developers can use to bring out Wave into other web services as well as create extensions that will work inside waves.
And finally, the Google Wave Protocol is the format for storing and sharing waves. It is designed for open federation, meaning anybody's wave can be shared and interoperated with other waves. Google plans to put the Google Wave Protocol into open source.
Google Wave in Simple Terms
So, in simple terms - What is Google Wave really? We can look at it in three different ways. From a users point of view - it is a communication tool. A more sophisticated and yet easy-to-use IM or Email client. For site owners, it is also a communication tool for enhancing the functionality and connectivity among websites. And for developers and coders, Google Wave is still a communication tool for developing gadgets, robots and applications which are easily embeddable and useable on websites.
Google Wave is yet to be made publicly available. But already, many are excited about its potential in the social and collaborative online world. Hopefull, it doesn't get lost somewhere in the middle of being cool and complex. After all, we as users need only one thing - a useful web tool that would make our online communication activities simpler and faster.