Start the Wave

I do not know if anyone has had the opportunity to look a to Google Wave yet.  Last year at a the Google conference this future product was unveiled.  It was said rather than always trying to improve upon an old idea it was time to try something new.  Thus, Wave was born.  It is described as what collaboration and communication would be like if email was designed today rather than trying to emulate snail mail.

Most know me as an avid Google supporter.  I like the fact that Google will try new things and try to break the mold.  Many times I do not think Google is going to do things the best, but I can almost guarantee that they will be the first ones willing to try.

A big thing about this product is that it will be open source.  All us tech nerds will be able to get our hands on the code and customize the hell out of it.  If you watch the video about Wave there is a scene showing Wave run in DOS.  If that does not sell you on how much control you are going to have I do not know what will.  All this control means we can tie Wave into back end systems like SAP or Oracle, plus a company can put their own version of Wave behind their firewall.  

I do not believe that Wave will replace email.  But I think there are certain places where Wave will shine.  Working on large documents collaboratively that have a tight deadline.  With Wave everything is real time.  No version control is needed and editing can happen as soon as someone writes a sentence.  Some think this is mean but if there is a tight deadline no one cares, just get the work done.  That is where I think Wave will work the best.