Google Wave could mean the death of email

Posted Saturday, 13 June 2009  |  Category:  All things web  |  Comments  | 

Watch out for Google Wave! It's set to come out later this year and completely re-structure the way we communicate electronically. Some have called it the most exciting thing Google has launched since it brought out Google.

So what is it?

Essentially an online collaboration tool, Google Wave looks to answer the question, "what would email look like if it was invented today?"

While traditional email is based on the snail mail concept – posting messages back and forth between individual recipients – Google Wave treats email as shared conversations (called waves), which users can open up and collaborate on in real time. As such, it merges elements of traditional email with instant messaging, wikis, web chat, file sharing, social networking and project management software. Sound complicated? It’s actually not. Here is an introduction on the key elements:

1. Real time communication

Instead of waiting for the proverbial postman to arrive, Google Wave users can communicate in real time, seeing messages instantly as they are being typed. This allows you to formulate faster queries and responses, similar to face to face scenarios. The full potential for this feature becomes clear when you see how it can be integrated with robots like Rosy and Stocky (more info below).

2. Multi user collaboration

Have you ever tried to wade through a multi-colour email where different users provide input on the same project? Over time, it becomes a technicolour nightmare! With Google Wave, multiple users can collaborate on the same wave, with clear denotations of who contributed what. Replies can be posted contextually within the message, and late comers can "play back" the entire conversation, seeing all amendments and replies in sequence.

3. File sharing and embedability

File sharing is super-easy with Google wave! Simply drag and drop your videos, photos, maps and documents from your hard drive directly into your wave client. This makes it easy to share files with particular users on specific projects – and could replace intranets and online file sharing apps. Furthermore, you can easily embed a wave on your blog or website, and see it update in real time. View the demo here. 

4. Open source

To encourage API integration, Google Wave is provided open source. We are likely to see many user-driven innovations similar to Firefox's extensions and Facebook's apps.

5. Spell check

Google Wave has really lifted the bar with its spell check! Instead of checking individual words against a dictionary, Google Wave does contextual spell checks.

Thus:

Can I have some been soup? It has bean so long.

Is automatically corrected to:

Can I have some bean soup? It has been so long.

See the spell check demo here.

6. Gadgets and robots

Google Wave becomes really exciting when you learn about the various gadgets, robots and extensions that are being developed. Examples include:

• Rosy – Translates your messages as you are typing them, allowing you to collaborate with foreign
  language speakers across the world (see the demo)
• Stocky - Automatically displays stock prices based on company names mentioned, and updates these  
   in real time
• Bloggy – Integrates wave content with your blog
• Bidder – Allows you to conduct auctions within your wave
• Polly – Creates dynamic polls, which update in real time
• Tweety – Yip, you guessed it! Integrates your wave and twitter accounts

And so on.

7. Learn more!

If it still sounds a bit complicated, the confusion clouds will start to disperse when you watch the full video. Alternatively, if you don't have 80 minutes to spare, watch the highlight reel here.

Google Wave could very well mean the death of email - at least, email as we know it!