Forward Google's Wave: Many Online Apps in One Tool GooGLE HAS released to developers an early vCl'S ion of 3 complex col13boration and communications tool that consolidates fc:atun:s of e~mai!, instant messaging, blagging, wikis, and multimedia management, as well as document sharing. Called Wave, the Web application is the equivalent of a Swiss army knife for consumer online services and is possibly one of the riskiest and most ambitious endeavors Googl e has embarked on. At its core, Wave Jets people create a document to which multiple users can add rich text, multimedia,
gadget applications, and feeds, and do so concurrently, much as people interact on, say, instant messaging. Users can roll back th ese "waves" to view the evolution of the document. In the works for about two years, Wave could dr~w peapie away from the comp~ny's other products (Blogger, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, Picas~, and Sites), ~nd from simil~r products by competitors such as AOL, Microsoft, ~nd Yahoo. Wave could also fall flat if people don't understand its us e, or if they can't he convinced to give up e-mail,
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GOOOLE' S WAVE, still under development, aims to be a unified, aU-lnone Web application tor communication and content creati«>.
blogging, 1M, and other individual online services. Still, it is a bold attempt by Google to provide a unified Web application for communication and content creation needs, instead of integrating the company' s discrete online services. "We ' re banking on Wave
NOT JUST FOR BUSINESS
Can Wave Solve Social Network Oversharing? GOOGLE CALLS WAVE a marriage of e-mail and instant messaging. But to me it looks more like the kind of '>Ocial network that I'd really enjoy, one where I can specify the people With whom I want to share a comment, a photo, or a video. One problem with Faceboo k is that most things you share go to everybody you've friended. from relatives to your boss. But few people want to share everything-like embarrassing pictureswith everyone they know. (See "How to Avoid Facebook and Twitter Disasters" on page 97.) Judg ing from the description and early screenshots of the '>!."Nice. Wave could be perfect for sharing content with only the people you choose. The service's basic element is caUed a 'wave: which can be a simple text message. a coUectlon of photos, a video. or other content. Just as with e-mail. you can choose exactly who you want to share a wave with. Those contacts can then make comments or ask questions that the whole group sees. You can view the new comments in real time: or, if you haven 't been paying attention for a wh ile, you can hit rewind and see chrono-
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..... --... 1IPl-_-________ . . __ , . . _.-. " OOOOLE'S WAVE LETS people share Just what they want with whom they want- and chat In real time.
logically how the wave developed. Each wave is li ke a new Facebook page created on the fly to share specific content with specific people. -Edward N. Albro
having a very large impact, but a lot of it de pends on our ability to exp13in this to users. That's part of the n:ason why we're putting this out early to developers,~ Lars Rasmuss en, Wave projectcofounder, says. Even after working on the product for about two years, Rasmussen ~nd the other members of the Wave devel· opment t eam an: still discovering new uses for the tool, so he is very aware that grasping the possibilities of Wave will not be an automatic thing for end users. Explaining further, he adds , ~Now is a good time for developers to start picking up the APls, building cool applications and extensions, so when we do launch later this year, our users and their users can enjoy all these things together.~ Rasmussen and his brother Jens , the other Wave project cofounder, arrived at Google in 2004 when the company bough t their mapping startup Where 2 Tech; they created what would become Google Maps, a service credited with igniting the mashup frenzy.
-juan Carlos Pu'tZ