Google unveils new Wave of communication

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 29 May 2009 at 10:01

Google has unveiled plans for a new type of real-time web communication, dubbed Wave.

The search giant describes a Wave as "equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

The concept is basically an almighty hybrid of instant messaging, blogging, Twitter and Facebook.

"In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it," explains Google software engineer, Lars Rasmussen, who co-developed Google Maps with his brother Jens.

"Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly.

"It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave.

"That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content - it allows for both collaboration and communication."

Google says the Waves could be used for a variety of purposes, including Twitter-style social networking and as an application platform, in a similar way to how games and other apps are written for Facebook.

Waves may also have business applications. Colleagues in different offices could collaborate on projects via waves, or developers could use a Wave to track bugs in software and discuss possible fixes.

Google has released a developer preview of Wave, in anticipation of a full public launch later this year.