Andrea Vascellari

Google Wave was presented last week at the Google developer app event. Now I understand what Robert Scoble was referring to watching the Google anthill move toward social and real time.

Yes it’s time for the ‘real time’.

When I saw the Google Wave presentation I couldn’t stop clapping my hands. As a communicator I would probably define Wave as one of the most interesting products released by Google.

What is about?

Check out the video and my notes below

PRODUCT:

A “wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. (Lars Rasmussen, Software Engineering Manager)

click on the pict to enlarge

what caught my attention:

• drag & drop
• playback function to move in time through the different stages of the wave. Really handy to manage more complex conversation.
• private messages
• attachments (reach media like, photos, videos, etc.)
• extract info from one wave to the other
• embed: outstanding. Cross-platform real-time interact

PLATFORM:

Google Wave can also be considered a platform with a rich set of open APIs that allow developers to embed waves in other web services, and to build new extensions that work inside waves. (Lars Rasmussen)

What’s cool about it?

• embed API: Thanks to this API you can embed waves for example in social networks. Let’s take Orkut, you can use Orkut contacts, create a wave within Orkut and you can also embed a search panel inside Orkut. (pretty powerful huhh?)
• it can run on mobile (Android, iPhone, etc.)
• shared documents: markups pop up on notes edited by others. (So you can forget about writing in different colors like often done in editing on google docs).
• playback works on documents too.
• widget that show/hide comments.
• documents can be shared in multiple ways like for example in another wave, in public, via email.

About collaboration:

• collaborative editing
• real time editing:  I love the fact that I can see where other people are editing so we won’t type over each other.
• support for different languages: International input editor and real time translation (in something like 40 languages…)
• collaborative organization: folders, tags

API extentions:

• spelly: smart spell-check
• linky: automatic link detection
• searchy: search from inside wave and add the search results to the wave we are working on.

API & gadgets:

• what I love: real time interaction between gadgets-server-UI
• playback works also in gadgets (example: chess game)
• maps can be used within wave too!

Robot extensions:

Apps built with the extension API

• Forms: forms are native to waves (and guess what… you can fill forms collaboratively!)
• Integration of wave with other existing communication systems: example… Twitter! We can create Twitter search and filtering from wave (we can get some sort of ‘Tweet Alerts’)
• Bugy: Once we spot a bug ‘bugy’ files it as a bug for us. Great #issueTracker.

PROTOCOL:

The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone’s Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service. (Lars Rasmussen)

Wave is an open protocol. This means that any organization can create their own wave systems (also in competition with Google) but still being able to communicate, interact and share waves across these boundaries.
An important feature of the protocol? What’s done on your server stays on your server! For example, private replies that are running on other servers then Google’s ones will never leave those servers so can’t be seen by Google.

SUMMARY:

• Wave is a communication object that can be used for different communication and collaboration activities
• email conversation
• instant messaging
• share reach media content
• platform to build blogging sites, discussion groups, enable discussion on your site’s content, wiki-like-sites
• collaborative editing on documents etc.
• rich set of extensions APIs that can let you build pretty much anything from games to collaborative applications inside wave, to integration with other communication systems (like twitter, etc.), to integration of waves into work flows.

Find out more about Google Wave here.
Andrea

Author: Andrea Vascellari

Andrea Vascellari is the CEO of itive.net. All thoughts and opinions on this blog are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer or clients; neither past or present. If you liked this post feel free to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe to this blog.