Google Wave Communication Preview
Google Wave is in developer release with a general public release date
later in 2009. It is operational with a desire to have worldwide
developer input before the public release.
Google Wave Product
What is Google Wave?
Google Wave is an open source communication and collaboration tool. It
has features similar to email, instant messaging, blogs, wikis and document
collaboration but all from a single application working
in real time. The user needs a Wave account and a
browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari that can load HTML 5 content.
Some advanced feature require Google Gears which can be loaded as a
browser extension. A wave can contain Rich Text, comments,
pictures and embedded object like You Tube video or Google Maps. All
wave participants work from a single real time copy of the wave.
What are some of the Google Wave advantages compared to existing Internet communication products?
- A Wave can be used
to translate text into 40 languages. The original and translated communication messages are seen side by side. This will appear if the language of the Wave and the Wave user are not the same.
- Spell check is in real time and content sensitive to the sentence you are writing.
- Changes to a wave can be seen either character by character or a bold Wave listing noting a change has occurred. Users can be either writing or reading with no waiting period.
- Multiple users can edit the same Wave simultaneously. Each editing users has a unique coloured cursor that other can see where editing is taking place.
- User can access Google Wave from a desktop, laptop, netbook, iPhone or Android mobile phone.
- A Google Wave can be viewed in a playback form showing who added or changed each new entry from beginning to the end.
- Wave users have a list of Google Waves they are participants and know which ones are changed as they go bold. This saves time not have to check lots of your comments to check for changes.
What are the main Google Wave document components?
- Wave - A threaded conversation with a title and at least one wavelet.
- Wavelet - Threaded conversation. One Wave can contain multiple Wavelets each with it own permissions and participant lists.
- Blip - A unit of conversation that can be published or in draft format. Each wave has at least 1 Blip. Blip/s can be used to create a new Wavelet or a new Wave if desired.
Google Wave versus Email and Instant Messaging
Google Wave can perform the functions of email and instant messaging
but as one application. Users can be associated with a Wave and see it
grow in real time, contribute in real time or simply note which Waves
have changed as their Wave title changes to bold. Private messaging
within a Wave is possible to select participants. A new Wavelet
conversation can be spawned from the main wave with a new participant
list.
Pictures can be dragged from the desktop to a Wave. All watching
participant see a thumbnail view of the picture and then the full
picture. Picture/s can be selected and viewed larger in an advanced
slide show style from within the Wave web application.
Google Wave and a Website
Google Waves can be visible by human participants and also be embedded
into a website web page complete with real time content changes. Google
Wave account holders can create or edit a wave from either the web page
or using the Wave web application. When a web page is added to the
participant list a banner entry indicates the external association.
Google Wave for Document Collaboration
A wave can contain Rich document information including formatting.
Multiple Wave participants to a wave can edit the document in real time
or add comments anywhere in the main document. When a document is ready
then it can be exported without the comments. A change history of who
contributed and edited what is maintained with the wave.
Waves can be searched and searches can be saved. Multiple languages can
be used on the save Wave. Waves can be arranged in folders and have
tags associated with them for later searching. Hyper-links can be
dragged into a wave. Other Waves can be hyper-linked.
Google Wave and External Systems
Google Wave has external real time both way interfaces with Twitter.
Other interfaces could be designed over time.
Google Wave Platform
Google Wave was created using the Google Web Toolkit with coding mainly
in Java with HTML, CSS, XML and other web format outputs.
Extensions can be created to work with Waves. Server side applications
can read messages and create changes in real time. New extensions can
be loaded from within a Wave.
Gadgets can be created for Google Wave. An example is a Google Map
button, highlight a document place word, press the Google Map button
and the map of the place is added including zoom functions.
A event gadget is a Yes No Maybe list where Wave participants drag
their name into a column. All participants have a real time view of the
lists.
Google Wave Protocol
Google Wave providers all follow the same communication protocols so that Wave users from
different providers can communicate seamlessly. As Wave is open source
you can become a Wave provider.
Can Google Wave replace several existing communication software type and improve productivity?
References
See Google Wave videos, download white papers and get notified of the
official public release launch date.
http://wave.google.com/
http://www.code.google.com/apis/wave
http://www.waveprotocol.org
