Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

At day 2 of Google’s I/O developer conference, the guys from the former Where 2 Tech, who helped Google create Google Maps, introduced a new communications tool.  The new tool, Google Wave, was born out of the idea that we should be able to funnel all the different forms of web communication into one easy-to-use model.  To begin using the tool, you create a “wave,” which uses rich-text, photos, videos, maps, and the like to create a mix of both conversation and document in one interface.  You can invite others to join your “wave” so they can edit it and converse with you.  The “wave” displays almost instantly any edits taking place by you or others.  There is also a “playback” feature so you can see the “wave” progress from start to finish. 

To me, Google Wave sounds like a really cool streaming collaboration tool.  Imagine doing those pesky group projects from middle school via Google Wave - probably a lot more fun than sitting around somebody’s dining table.  You can carry on a discussion, share photo ideas, and do web research all with one interface.  It also sounds like it’d be great for family and group reunions where the members are geographically spread out.  Everyone in the group agrees to be on the “wave” at the same time and you’ve got yourself a little party where people can reunite with photos, videos, and chat.

Google plans to make Google Wave code open source and is encouraging developers to have a go at it before the program is opened to the public.  A few websites have been set up for developers interested in the Wave: Google Wave Developer blog , Google Wave APIs , and Google Wave Federation Protocol .  There are no set plans for when Google Wave will go public, but you can register at http://wave.google.com to be notified when its ready.

Read: [Official Google Blog]