What people misunderstand about Google Wave
I had heard about Google Wave, had a quick look at their UI, thought “shiny” and not really paid it much attention. Then I was reminded of it again recently and so I had another look, watched the Keynote Speech that they gave at the Google I/O 2009 and had a bit of a look around the web for related articles.
And I got really excited and really angry.
I got angry, because most people weren’t excited for the right reasons, or were dismissive / “anti” because they didn’t really see what Google has done.
But because I am so excited about Wave (not just Google Wave), I thought I’d post this to help you understand what Google Wave actually is and what it isn’t.
What Google Wave isn’t
Google Wave isn’t Wave.
Wait a second! Why have you dropped the “Google”, what’s “Wave” all about?
Firstly let’s take an analogy, with something you are no doubt familiar with. Consider the statement:
Google Mail is not email.
Imagine that email didn’t exist and Google showcased Google Mail. People might think that email was Google Mail, but we all know that isn’t the case.
The same for Wave. Google have designed a messaging system which can be run by anyone. They have designed the protocols it will use which anyone can implement. This messaging system is not Google Wave, but Wave itself.
What Google Wave is
Google have designed a UI for Wave, which is Google Wave.
Don’t get me wrong, I like their interface. It is written in HTML5 using the Google Web Toolkit and it is super slick.
However, the Wave itself is far more exciting.
What Wave is
Wave is email redesigned for the 21st century. Email was born before the internet and has been flogged and flogged into how we use it now. It is inefficient, single one-way message based, bad with files, incosistent with rich styling, non-collaborative and basically just way past it’s “sell by date”.
With Wave we no longer deal in single messages, but conversations; where content evolves over time and can be “played back” to provide the user with context. Everything email and IM can do and more. They have designed the system to be extensible and so can communicate with other systems. They also designed it to work over a federated networks model, so many people running their own Wave servers can communicate in the same rich way as if they were communicating with their people on their own server.
Amazing really, and provided we can bridge the backwards compatibility gap* (which we can, remember Wave is extensible!) then I see Wave replacing email altogether.
When Google Wave goes live, Google will also be releasing the server for anyone to run, learn, enjoy and stop using email with. I am looking forward it immensely.
[update 2009-08-06] Further developments have shown that yes “gateways” have been designed in, so Wave can replace email and any other messaging/collaboration protocols/tools if someone creates a “gateway” for it.