Google previews smart new communication tool

Google has provided a sneak preview of its latest communication application, Google Wave, to the global developer community.

Pitched as the next generation of communication tools, the new application attempts to integrate the functionality of e-mail, chat, blogging and all other forms of digital communication into a single user-friendly interface.

Google Wave is the brainchild of brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the developer-siblings responsible for creating Google Earth, on of the company’s most successful projects. According to their official blog, the Google Wave application will revolutionize the way people communicate, and create knowledge and information.

Says Lars Rasmussen: “In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use ‘playback’ to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”

This approach would make it possible for users to not only communicate, but to collaborate on projects and documents in real time while being geographically apart.

As with other Google developments, Google Wave will be developed as an open source application, encouraging developers worldwide to contribute to its evolution, and expand the offering with add-on third party applications. The creators have encouraged the developing community to test Beta versions of the application, and to make suggestions and improvements.

Although no set release date for Google Wave has been announced, the official blog states that the product will be released later this year.

— Charl Lombard