The Google Wave Logo
I got my Google Wave invite from a friend about a week ago. There’s a lot of buzz about it on Twitter and the tech sites.
Most people I’ve talked to, though, have no idea what it is. I think that’s mostly because Google released a one hour and twenty minute long video trying to describe it. I didn’t even watch the whole thing, and I basically have no life.
I have, however, read some helpful posts, and had some first hand experience. I also kind skipped through the feature-length video overview, trying to gleam what I could.
The basics
Google Wave Screenshot
Basically, Google Wave is what email would be if email had been invented in 2009. I think I stole that description from Google or someone else. In my own words: Google Wave is a communication tool designed to make communication on the internet easier, faster, more streamlined, cooler looking, and AJAX enabled.
It does this with features like content embedding (pictures, videos, maps), live chat (showing what the other person is typing as they’re typing it), 3rd party services integration (coming soon), extendability, and a shiny user interface (of course). Google Wave simplifies conversations that would normally have to take place in a chatroom, or in an email thread with everyone hitting “reply all”. It allows you to watch the conversation evolve, invite other people into the conversation, and send things to only certain people. All this can happen live or over time, and content embedding is always allowed.
What’s it mean for the future?
Honestly, I don’t know what this will do to the internet. Google’s really good at changing things. I think it will be picked up by a lot of businesses when it finally gets released. That has a lot of pull because people like to take their tools home with them. Being able to plan your family reunion with the same software you use to plan a work-related project is appealing to a lot of people.
The two big problems will be the “old dog, new tricks” dilemma, and software compatibility. Many set-in-their-ways people will not like Google Wave and will insist on continuing to use email, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”… Software compatibility is also a big issue. Browsers like IE6 and IE7 will not work with Google Wave it all, likely. It’s built using HTML5 and a lot of JavaScript. That means that even IE8 and Firefox 3.5 will not have the full user experience. Though with Google already dropping Youtube’s support for IE6, the browser industry could start moving ahead more quickly than we thought.
Google Wave is a bit buggy and unpolished. They haven’t even given their testers access to the settings menu yet. Additionally, their chosen markup-language (HTML5) is an unfinished spec right now. I doubt we’ll be seeing a major release from Google any time soon.
