Oct
2
Want On the Google Wave? Too Bad. (For Now Anyway)
As was the case with Google Chrome in the browser war, Google Wave is coming late to the social networking game. But if true to form, Google’s tardiness will only make for a grander entrance. Even so, it will be an impressive feat if their latest project can become a serious competitor to Facebook and Myspace.
But we may be surprised yet, as Google Wave seeks to do much more than simply keep us all in touch via profiles and message posts. Here we have web-based tool that seeks to merge it all — e-mail, IMing, wiki, and social networking — into one application with “a strong collaborative and real-time focus.” And as Wave was also made with an eye to seamlessly integrating plug-ins, apps, robots, and gadgets, it may very well show itself to be the ideal tool for groups and businesses seeking to sync themselves digitally in mind and purpose.
Interestingly enough, Google Wave also takes full advantage of Html 5, an encoding that the latest versions of the most popular browser on the market, Internet Explorer, is not even equipped to handle. (Google Frame is suddenly making much more sense.)
The name Wave comes from the Firefly television series, where a “wave” is an instant electronic communication. For Google, a wave is a shared communication that can include formatted texts, photos, videos, maps, and pretty much anything else you can electronically come up with. It is shared in the sense that communicating participants can reply during the message, can edit in real-time and play back, and can even add content at any point, thereby creating an unto-itself web object, constantly evolving and allowing for faster and highly-adaptable virtual interaction. Confusing, yes. Google Wave is live in every sense, and in a sense even translive… or something… honestly, I’m not sure if I entirely grasp it yet.
The Wave is a new internet entity, created and limited to Google. But Google is hoping the new concept will catch on and third-parties will begin building their own Wave services, eventually replacing e-mail. Replace e-mail? Well there’s Google “ambition” for you.
Go here to check out some of the extensions already developed.
“I’ve got a golden ticket…”
Want to visit out Google Wave for yourself? Well too bad. Google only gave out a limited number of accounts to attendees to their recent Google I/O conference, hoping visiting developers will begin creating apps for Wave before wide release later this year. Each initial account was given 8 other invites to hand out. A Google invite auctioned off on eBay went for $157 bucks. So unless you know the right people (I don’t), or are willing to fork over some cash (I’m not), we’ll all just have to wait with the rest of the world to be invited to the Google Clique.
