The Future of Email
November 2nd, 2009 | by rey |
“What email would look like if it were invented today.” That’s how Google describes Google Wave, a new online real-time communication and collaboration tool currently under development.
What does it do exactly? Well this is as exact as I can get it since Wave is still a work in progress and is accessible by invitation only. I have not received an invitation.
Unlike the 40-year old technology we all know as email, it does more than allow you to send messages to other people or a group of people. In addition to that, it can turn that exchange into a live conversation, sort of like IM if the participants (recipients in traditional email-speak) are online. It essentially treats a conversation as a document with anyone who has been sent the message a potential editor. So a conversation/document may contain images, maps, videos, flowcharts that editors can manipulate in real time.
Using APIs (application programming interfaces) created by the Google Wave team, web developers can create extensions that allow Google Wave to do even more things like update your blog in real-time, or create a twitter client, or lo and behold play games like D&D, Chess and Soduko.
Watch this short video by a Google Wave fan who sadly has not been invited to “ride the Wave” either. Sad but true:
If you want to get into more details about Google Wave, watch this abridged version of an 80-minute developer preview at Google I/O 2009.
2 Responses to “The Future of Email”
By hotspot shield on Nov 6, 2009 | Reply
Really enjoyed this! Well done!
By Harry Friedlander on Aug 12, 2010 | Reply
I read about this in the Daily news. Im not being racist but so-called celebrities are preaching nothing because thy are barely uman. let Boris Johnson sort it out. What about my right not to be killed every day?!