The Rasmussens, creators of google maps have developed a tool that will transform the way we communicate, meet the "Google Waves". Google's new platform consolidates various communications and social networking technologies into a single web application.
The idea behind Google Wave is that you could get all the benefits of e-mail, IM, web chat, wikis, blogs and something like SharePoint or Groove with just one fast, real-time browser-based application? Wave expands the capabilities of email by allowing people to work together in real-time with text, photos, videos, maps and even social network feeds. Google wants the hybrid service to evolve even more with the help of independent software programmers before rolling it out for everyone.
The idea behind Google Wave is that you could get all the benefits of e-mail, IM, web chat, wikis, blogs and something like SharePoint or Groove with just one fast, real-time browser-based application? Wave expands the capabilities of email by allowing people to work together in real-time with text, photos, videos, maps and even social network feeds. Google wants the hybrid service to evolve even more with the help of independent software programmers before rolling it out for everyone.
Waves make it easier to converse over email by providing tools to highlight parts of the written conversation. In instant messages one can see what everyone else is writing as they type unless they choose a privacy control option. Photos and widgets can also be built on or modified as they are streamed from one recipients to another.
The Rasmussens broke away from Google's mapping service in 2006 to concentrate on a project codenamed Walkabout that would enable email and instant messaging to embrace the Web's social nature. Wave is the brainchild of Lars Rasmussen and his brother, Jen, who earlier founded a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech bought by Google in 2004. The brothers' technology basically powered Google Maps. After months holed up in a conference room in Google's Sydney office, a five-person "startup" team emerged with a prototype. "Now, after more than two years of expanding our idea, our team and technology, we're inviting developers to add all kinds of cool stuff before our public launch," said Rasmussen.
As Lars describes it, "We set out to answer the question: What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?"yet so many of our applications bear the burden of decades of old thinking. We need to challenge our assumptions and re-imagine the tools we take for granted. We started with a set of tough questions:
The Rasmussens broke away from Google's mapping service in 2006 to concentrate on a project codenamed Walkabout that would enable email and instant messaging to embrace the Web's social nature. Wave is the brainchild of Lars Rasmussen and his brother, Jen, who earlier founded a tiny mapping startup called Where 2 Tech bought by Google in 2004. The brothers' technology basically powered Google Maps. After months holed up in a conference room in Google's Sydney office, a five-person "startup" team emerged with a prototype. "Now, after more than two years of expanding our idea, our team and technology, we're inviting developers to add all kinds of cool stuff before our public launch," said Rasmussen.
As Lars describes it, "We set out to answer the question: What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?"yet so many of our applications bear the burden of decades of old thinking. We need to challenge our assumptions and re-imagine the tools we take for granted. We started with a set of tough questions:
- Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
- Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
- What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers' current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?
In answering the question, Jens, Lars, and team re-imagined email and instant-messaging in a connected world, a world in which messages no longer need to be sent from one place to another, but could become a conversation in the cloud. Effectively, a message (a wave) is a shared communications space with elements drawn from email, instant messaging, social networking, and even wikis.
Wave offers a very sleek and easy way to navigate and participate in communication on the web that makes both email and instant messaging look stale.Wave is a different product for a number of reasons, and seemingly has loftier goals — all of which I’ll touch on below. Wave is a different product for a number of reasons, which have much better comparison with FriendFeed.
Wave features a left-hand sidebar “Navigation” and a list of your contacts, from Google Contacts, below that. But the main part of the screen is your Wave inbox. This looks similar to what your Gmail inbox looks like except it feature the faces of your friends who are involved in each thread. There are also number indicators signifying if there is new content in that thread. This is an important distinction from Gmail — it isn’t just about new messages, there can be any kind of new content in these waves.
surely google is on new direction
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