Wave Goodbye to Email

Many have surmised that the next generation of internet users will forgo using email all together, instead favoring communication through text message, chat, Twitter, Facebook, and other mediums that provide more instant gratification and collaboration. At today’s Google I/O Developer Conference, Google may have just put that debate to rest by announcing a new communication tool, Google Wave.

The idea, originally codenamed “Walkabout,” was spawned by Jens Rasmussen in Google’s Sydney office. Jens and his brother Lars started by asking several fundamental questions:

“Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication – email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?

Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?

What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers’ current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?”

Working with a small team over the last two years, the Googlers came up with a revolutionary way to mash-up and improve the best features of email, chat, social networking, and wikis. One of the key features is the ability to chat and share files in real-time through a process called operational transformation (explained in a video by Google engineer David Wang). In laymen terms, this means that :

“In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”

David Wang explains for private conversations (not being published to the Web), this feature makes online conversations more engaging. With chat (and even more so with email), you have to wait for the other person to finish their thought and hit the enter/send button to comprehend what they are trying to communicate. Since we don’t communicate like that in real life, Wang contends that it breaks the natural flow of conversation.

Moreover, for public dialogues on blogs and Web sites, the possible applications for Google Wave are mind-numbingly endless. Others have already covered what is currently known about Google Wave, but there is obviously much more to come. In the meantime, check out some of these great resources on the topic.

A Sneak Peak at Google Wave at Google Blogoscoped
Google Wave of the Future Revolutionizing the Web at Marketing Pilgrim
Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web at TechCrunch
Google Reinvents Email, Docs with ‘Google Wave’ (with slideshow) at PCMag
Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave at The Official Google Blog
Google Wave Homepage at Google

Updated: Video Available