Monday, December 14, 2009

Google Wave

A lot has been talked about the Google’s latest adventure trip Wave and some have already labeled it as the next big thing in the web arena. At the same time there is a lot of lingering confusion in some sections of the users who have heard of the new wave but are unable to figure out if this wave will be able to make a splash just the way other Google technologies have done so far. So, definitely there is a mixed reaction but at the same time it’s apparent that Google Wave in its nascent stage itself has already been able to successfully create required amount of hysteria amongst the developer community and the web users alike.


Is Wave just a collaboration tool?
Yes! But no, it need not be considered a tool only as its being touted as a platform which allows utilization of cloud computing to efficiently collaborate email, messaging service, various other applications & APIs to provide a sophisticated new web-based service platform; lot of jargons, huh?

In simple words, it merges your regular email, instant messaging & documentation tool in a single email like format. The Wave treats each wave (each email) as a live document which can be addressed to a specific set of recipients allowing single, some or all the recipients to edit any/some part of the wave concurrently thereby creating communication threads. That sounds cool, right? Well, this kind of collaboration has already been there in the past also for example – Google chat (GTalk) within Gmail, Orkut, etc. But then how is it different than what we have seen so far.

Since each wave is basically an editable document, it allows the wave users (recipients) to maintain a single document comprising all the required information at a central location for edits, reviews, approvals, etc. Unlike an email, a wave starts expanding/contracting as and when new edits are introduced thereby eliminating the need for going through the endless mail trails which hit our mailboxes whenever a communication is started requiring multiple recipients to participate, provide inputs, review & approve the final version.

What’s the big deal about instant messaging here then?
Well, the most interesting & intriguing part of this new platform is that each wave functions as a threaded conversation (remember, users can edit parts of the wave) which can be extended by the users by responding to a particular thread. Also, the wonderful part of this experience is that the online users can see parts of the wave being edited in real time as they are being typed providing complete visibility which can be used for tracking later using its playback feature.

Let’s see a quick simple example
‘A’, ‘B’ , ‘C’ , D‘’ , ‘E’ , ‘F’ & ‘G’ need to go out for dinner and ‘A’ initiates a discussion thread to decide which restaurant to visit for the same.   If ‘A’ is typing “where to go for the dinner tonight” then ‘B’, ‘D’ & ‘G’ could instantly respond with their suggestions in real time just like an instant message. ‘C’ & ‘F’ reply to the same later (once they get online) and voila, all of them could now see the final single wave/document/email to see what’s the unanimous dinner destination to go for. Thinking about ‘E’? ‘E’ opts out of the plan and responds to the wave asking all others to kindly excuse him. Imagine, this simple example in a non-Wave world where either all of them ‘A’, ‘B’, etc. would have to be either online at the same time or would be required to exchange numerous mails and eventually spend endless effort to figure out what’s the final destination has been selected and if all the participants are joining in or not.

If wave is a document, then does it allow embedding media elements?
Yes, it very much does and does it with lot of elegance in fact. Each wave can have text with embedded images, videos & even maps which can be easily shared with wave recipients and the recipients can view the same directly in the wave itself. You can create a group photo album, share it with your group & also allow the group members to update the album by adding their photos too. Sharing at its best, still thinking of Picasa, Flickr anyone?

What are other salient features of the Google Wave?
  • Allows for easy document control & versioning.
  • Open source platform allows extensibility for endless possibilities.
    A wave could either be used as an email, document, as an instant message without requiring the users to switch actually.
  • More & more Wave APIs will eventually become available for the developer community to build extensions, mashups & provide greater uses to the end-users.
  • On the surface, it’s basically an HTML 5 web application built using Google Web Toolkit but will eventually be adopted as a new protocol which may replace email protocol to an extent , if not completely.

Important/Useful Related Links

Disclaimer: The thoughts presented above need not be considered as the ultimate guide and need not be treated as official endorsement by any means.