Google has announced a new collaborative communications platform – a cross between email, chat and wikis… ¬†Called Google Wave. ¬†There may well be a point in two or three years when every is talking about Google Wave, using it, obsessing over it, improving their communications with it. ¬†Right now, it’s just a news item – but I would suggest it’s a bloody important news item.
Australian-based Google Engineer Jens Rasmussen, the inventor of Google Maps, had a revolutionary thought, as recounted by his brother / partner Lars here on the Google Blog:
¬†…two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the ’60s to imitate analog formats ‚Äî email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented ‚Äî blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. ‚Äî and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point, and I was immediately sold. (Jens insists it took him hours to convince me, but I like my version better.)
How Google Wave¬†actually works? ¬†When will Google Wave be launched? ¬†Who knows, I’ve not had a play. ¬†There’s no date set for the launch. ¬†But if you’d like to be notified of launch, then sign up here:¬†http://wave.google.com¬†and Google will let you know as soon as it’s ready.