Google Wave: The e-Mail Killer

What is the most hyped spectacular surprise from Google till date?
OR
What’s the biggest production launch from Google till date? Take a guess?

Chrome, Android, Earth, Orkut, Picasa, Blogger, Gmail, iGoogle, AdSense, AdWords or YouTube (acquired by Google in Nov 2006)?

Google Wave!

Right, if I heard Google Wave. I must say you are in the tech-wave & living on the tech-edge. The logo you see here is of Google Wave. Beautiful!

Update: Get a Google Wave Invite

What?

It is something which you may have imagined in your wild dreams! It’s something which is going to ‘kill’ the existing e-Mail protocol & if Google is to be believed it’s going to replace e-Mail as the dominant form of communication.

Today everybody is on e-Mail. Tomorrow everyone will be on Wave. Yes, on Google Wave.

Google wave is the next generation of Internet Communication, single communication model. Wiki defines Google Wave as a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages, and numerous other extensions.

Underlying Technology

It is written in Java using OpenJDK & the web interface uses Google Web Toolkit. It’s still in Active Development but has been launched for review for 100,000 users on 30th Sept 2009. Later Google may release the source code as open source, So that other developers can contribute to the interface by developing extensions for it.

Product Features:

• e-Mail
• Instant messaging
• Social networking
• Wiki functionality
• Automated translation between 40 languages (On the fly).
• Robust Spelling/Grammar check
• Real Time collaboration
• Maps
• Waves can be embedded in sites, blogs using Google Wave APIs .
• Real time collaboration (you can see what someone else is typing, character by character)
• Videos
• Applications & Extensions

 Invitation to use Google Wave

The net savvy crowd is going crazy! Everyone wants an invitation to use Google Wave and be a part of the next communication revolution. There’s an absolute rush & chaos for Google Wave invitation. A few innovative entrepreneurs have already started making profit by selling it on eBay ($100/invitation or even more). Literally, 10000s of net surfers are begging for a Google wave invite!

To use Google Waves you must be invited by Google or from anyone who has got an invitation directly from Google. I am not sure but it seems Google is still sending invitations. If you remember, it’s almost like Gmail invitations in its early days.

Google's invitation will be extended to:

• Developers who have been active in the developer preview we started back in June 2009
• Select customers of Google Apps
• The first users who signed up and offered to give feedback on wave.google.com

I am not eligible for the 1st one but I’ve applied & signed for an invitation using the 2nd & 3rd criteria.

You don’t have a Google Apps account, no need to worry, as anyone can easily sign-up using the 3rd criterion. Sign up here. May be the chances of getting an early invitation using this is remote still you can keep your fingers crossed. If you have a Google Apps account sign up here.

Google wave terminologies

Today you hear about twit, scrap, bots… Tomorrow you will hear a lot about:

Wave, Wavelet, Blip, gadgets, Robots, Embedded Wave, Document, Extension…etc

Yes, Robots is an interesting feature perhaps the most powerful feature of Google Wave. Robots are automated participant in a wave (specific thread of conversation). Robots can provide information from outside source as well as can check content & take specific action based on them. I am not sure but it seems like an automated assistant which can perform some mundane task for you. May be it will send an e-Mail based on some specific response. One example of a Robot is Stocky which pulls out stock prices to help you in decision making.

 

Conclusion

 

That was all about the glitz & glamour of Google Wave. But whatever we have discussed here are only one side of the story of Google Wave. Many users are quite skeptical & feel it has not lived up to the hype it has generated! They feel it’s unproductive to have so many features in a single application. Check here.

Anyway, That’s an ongoing debate. Just like Coke vs. Pepsi, Google vs. Microsoft, Ferrari vs. Lamborghini

 

Let’s not kill the innovation in our debate. Hats off to Google…

Happy GoWaving~~~~~

References:

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave
Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-guide/