Technology Tuesday: Google Wave
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What Is Google Wave?E-mail is old... e-mail has been around since 1971 when Ray Tomlinson developed a hack to transfer files over ARPANET (the network that evolved into what we now call the Internet ). He says it took him about six hours to create — in his spare time. E-mail has not changed too dramatically over the years; this simplicity may be one of the reasons for its ubiquity. However, e-mail has inherent flaws, such as:
Google Wave grew out of the question “What would e-mail look like if it were invented today?” As such, it is a real-time collaborative tool that assembles the elements of IM (Instant Message), Wikis, Google Docs and e-mail into one interface. Initially you may find it a little confusing to use, but Google Wave has the potential to usurp older methods of communication. The inventors of Google Wave (Lars and Jens Rasmussen, who also created Google Maps) are science fiction geeks, and the Wave name was inspired by the television series “Firefly.” In Firefly’s universe, communication took place via “wave.” Hence the name. Wave is a protocol, in the same way the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a protocol. HTTP allows netizens to create webpages and surf the Web. When Tim Berners-Lee gave HTTP and the Web to the Internet community, this transformed the world — and the way we communicate. Perhaps Google Wave may have a similar influence. Google is developing Wave, but this technology is not proprietary — others can develop the three elements of Google Wave:
How Do You Get a Google Wave Account?There are two ways to get a Google Wave account (something that looks like jmoore.depaul@googlewave.com):
Option two is generally the quickest way to get an invitation. Typically, you may have to wait a week for your invitation to come through. This will be sent from the the account wave-noreply@google.com. You may have to check your spam filter to ensure that this message arrives successfully. Running Google WaveGoogle currently recommends three browsers for running Google Wave:
Mobile DevicesGoogle Wave will run on the iPhone (if you ignore the error message), on the Palm Pre (with a hack to make the browser to report as Mobile Safari) and on Android mobile telephones. Google Wave InterfaceGoogle Wave’s interface is fairly straightforward - with 4 primary panes:
Google Wave StructureGoogle Wave operates by using Wavelets. A Wavelet is a container for:
RamificationsGoogle Wave has just been launched. The product may enter history as one of Google’s interesting experiments, or it may take off. If Google Wave is a success, then there are some possible outcomes:
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