Real Time e-mail: Google does the Wave

Google went the distance yet again. This time, they mixed, blended and fused voice,email, IM, Blogs, Wikis, collaborative documents, social media sharing, social networking to create the "e-mail of the future: Wave". Essentially combining the basics of conversation type communication and collaborative communication, Google re-invented communication real time. The Wave is little like Twitter, a little more Friendfeed and a bit of Facebook, allowing the users to send direct messages to online contacts with real time replies, photos and document sharing and more --> and it is Google's answer for real time- internet communication.

A user creates a wave by typing a message or uploading photos and adding contacts to the wave as they see fit. Other contacts can be added later and the new contacts can aalso add contacts to the wave.

Presently, Google is releasing APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), so that developers can build the wave into their own sites and integrate their own services with Google. This would enable three kinds of developer projects:

1. Wave as a conversation gateway. (Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook and other Blogs better be afraid of the Wave factors). For a start, Google wave will allow users to post new items to blogs created with Blogger from within a wave, and see comments and replies within the wave.

2. The second advantage would be applications that will be created within a wave, similar to the sorts created by developers on Facebook as a platform.

3, Lastly, this could also work as an enhancement to existing workflow within an enterprise.

While Google is some way off from the release, the Wave clears one question. It certainly does speak about why was Google silent on rumours of its buying out Twitter and other such companies!

The functionalities:

• Is a service that looks like a rich piece of client software;
• Behaves like sophisticated threaded e-mail;
• Acts like IM when multiple collaborators are online at once.
• Is one of the most real-time collaborative tools I’ve ever seen.
• Has revision marking and versioning for workgroup editing.
• Has instant photo sharing.
• Allows its functionality to be embedded into blogs and social networks;
• Can serve as a container for OpenSocial applications;
• Has what Google says is a revolutionary spell checker;
• Comes in mobile flavors for Android and iPhone;
• Is an open-source project that lets developers write both Wave extensions ... and their own servers

Wave could be a competitor to Outlook and Office if Google were to roll Docs/Gmail/Cal under the Wave umbrella. It could be a strong competitor to Microsoft SharePoint. When asked about Sharepoint at the Q&A, however, the Googlers brushed it off, saying Wave has “far greater breadth,” and is superior because of its openness and federation model. (breathtaking arrogance of blowing off potential competition)

The magic words "improved workflow" (Using Google Wave) will entice companies to at least try it. There's no question that freelancers, telecommuters, and anyone who relies on remote collaboration will jump on Wave the day it's available, and stick with it if it helps save time and money.

Google at the end of the day never fails to enthrall.