{"id":1485,"date":"2009-05-29T12:53:08","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T11:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/1485-google-wave-a-disruptive-approach-to-email-and-collaboration.html"},"modified":"2009-05-29T12:53:08","modified_gmt":"2009-05-29T11:53:08","slug":"google-wave-a-disruptive-approach-to-email-and-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/1485-google-wave-a-disruptive-approach-to-email-and-collaboration.html","title":{"rendered":"Google Wave: a disruptive approach to collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched the Google Wave Developer Preview session at Google IO.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"560\" height=\"340\" data=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/v_UyVmITiYQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/v_UyVmITiYQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>It is tedious to sit through 1 hour 20 mins of conference presentation; but it is worth watching at least a little of it to see some Wave demos. In essence, Google is presenting email++ and hopes it will catch on. A \u201cwave\u201d is loosely analogous to an email conversation or a thread on a discussion board. You participate using a browser-based client. Unlike email, in which messages are copied hither and thither, a wave exists on a server so you always see the latest version. Again unlike email, a wave offers real-time synchronization, so that I see your replies or comments as you type. This means you can use a wave like an instant messaging system or like a wiki (collaborative document editing). You can also embed rich media and extend the system with robots (non-human participants which add functionality) or gadgets, such as polls, games, applications. Waves can be embedded into web pages, just as the above video is embedded into this blog post.<\/p>\n<p>The client-side API for Wave is written in <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/webtoolkit\/\">Google Web Toolkit<\/a>, and according to the keynote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>we couldn\u2019t have built something like this without GWT<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The server side, such as robots, has an API in Java or Python. You can check out the APIs <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/apis\/wave\/\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/services.google.com\/fb\/forms\/wavesignupfordev\/\">sign up for a developer account<\/a>. The Wave protocol is also published, and is documented <a href=\"http:\/\/www.waveprotocol.org\/\">here<\/a>. Google is talking about launch later this year. Mashable has a <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2009\/05\/28\/google-wave-guide\/\">good overview<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Significance of Wave<\/h3>\n<p>This is the bit that interests me most. Why bother with Wave? Well, Google is hoping we will find this to be a compelling alternative and partner to email, <a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\">Facebook<\/a>, instant messaging, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\">Twitter<\/a>, discussion boards, and more. For example, you could develop a new kind of discussion board in which the topics are waves rather than threaded discussions. The impact might include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Driving users to Google Chrome and other browsers optimized for fast JavaScript, and away from Microsoft IE.<\/li>\n<li>Promoting use of Google-sponsored APIs like <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/apis\/opensocial\/\">OpenSocial<\/a>, upon which Wave builds.<\/li>\n<li>Shifting attention away from classic email servers such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/exchange\">Microsoft Exchange<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lotus.com\/notes\">Lotus Notes<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Offering an alternative to Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat for document collaboration.<\/li>\n<li>Getting more us to run our content on Google\u2019s servers and use Google\u2019s identity system. This is not required as I understand it \u2013 the keynote mentions the ability to run your own Wave servers \u2013 but it is inevitable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The demos are impressive, though it looks like a large Wave with many contributors could become hard to navigate; but it is definitely something I look forward to trying.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, it is notable that Google\u2019s Flash-aversion is continuing here: all the client stuff is done with JavaScript and HTML.<\/p>\n<p>I am not sure how this might work offline; but I imagine Google could do something with Chrome and Gears, while no doubt there is also potential for a neat Adobe AIR client, using the embedded WebKit HTML renderer.<\/p>\n<div id=\"scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:be52677e-8385-44d8-bfc2-9a79ad9f698f\" class=\"wlWriterEditableSmartContent\" style=\"padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px\">Technorati Tags: <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/google+wave\">google wave<\/a>,<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/gwt\">gwt<\/a>,<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/adobe\">adobe<\/a>,<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/microsoft\">microsoft<\/a>,<a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/lotus\">lotus<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched the Google Wave Developer Preview session at Google IO. It is tedious to sit through 1 hour 20 mins of conference presentation; but it is worth watching at least a little of it to see some Wave demos. In essence, Google is presenting email++ and hopes it will catch on. A \u201cwave\u201d is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/1485-google-wave-a-disruptive-approach-to-email-and-collaboration.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Google Wave: a disruptive approach to collaboration<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,36,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adobe","category-google","category-microsoft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}