Google Wave Breaks The Email Mold

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw]

By now you’ve probably heard something about Google Wave which saw a private preview release last week. The video above is an eight minute overview of the core functionality that the Wave offers. Wave development was based on the premise that email, invented 40 years ago, has not kept pace with our working needs as a technological society. Wave looks to improve on the email model by combining real time chat features, in line conversations, and web tools like document sharing and real-time translation.

The team here at Hack a Day uses a collaborative effort to bring you the best hacks we can find. To do so, we use a combination of email, instant messaging, document sharing, IRC, and old-fashioned conference calling. We’re waiting patiently for our invitation and although we’ve been skeptical of some past Google offerings, we hope the advertised features of Google Wave will allow us to improve our team coverage for the benefit of our readers.

Are you already using Google Wave? Please share your experiences with us in the comments.

68 thoughts on “Google Wave Breaks The Email Mold

  1. I see comment’s refering this to IRC. IRC is great, but it’s persistant. You can not edit the information posted by another use like you can with this.

    I could see this being a powerful tool for dev-team’s looking for a way to share and edit code in unison from a distance. If there could be a secondary window open that would track the conversation that goes along with the coding then this would by far surpass Devunity.

  2. i have to say that i really like google wave. it felt pointless at first with no friends on wave, then i discovered how to find public waves. i think it has a lot of promise. just my 2 cents.

    btw your gmail account also becomes an @googlewave.com account as well. a friend test emailed mine and i never got it….

  3. No, this is not the most innovative creation ever. All they claim is that gwave is what they thought email should be in this day and age. Basically it takes things that are already available and puts them in one place.

    -Chatroom (IRC, AIM) with private messages
    -Editable comments (Forums, Facebook)
    -Translation (all over the web)
    -Posts to Twitter
    -Posts to your blog
    -Drag & Drop pictures (AIM direct connect)
    -Online games with playback feature
    -Powerful search function for all of the above

    I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting or haven’t heard of. But I for one am excited to have all of these available in one simple interface. Who cares if it’s not email of the future. It’s email of today.

  4. And looking at the video this has shitall to do with email, A webapp with shared communication is sooner compared with facebook or IM’s or that failed orkut thing.
    To refer to email in connection with this is ridiculous, and delusional.

  5. Ok, to everyone whining about it “being in real time” and “everyone sees as you type”:

    Flip off your switch for a while.

    Character-by-character update is merely an option, a non-fundamental accessory.

    JUST AS THEY THOROUGHLY EXPLAIN IN THAT 90 MINUTE VIDEO YOU DIDN’T WATCH.

    This is the dumbed-down version for the masses.
    In the full 90 minute intro they explain syndication, privacy, standardization and even show a fucking CLI client to get one damned thing into your decrepit skull: this is an open standard based on syndication. Just like email.

    And then you go and compare it to MSN fucking Messenger.
    Way to show your understanding on this matter.
    Almost as good as “XMPP sucks because you can’t sign in with any email like MSN”.

    @pauliweb most of those features are accomplished by adding “robots”, which are built on top of the framework laid out by wave – meaning anyone can make anything along those lines and it’ll be a first-class citizen just like the ones showed.
    Think about that means.

    @James Gtalk uses XMPP; you can message people using other XMPP servers just like you can email people who use other email servers.
    Why no MSN? Because it’s a centralized protocol, as opposed to being syndicated (like email and XMPP).

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