Google Wave: Changing the World as You Know It

While you may not have a Google Wave account yet, it may be just a matter of time before you're invited to join in on this new and exciting personal communication and collaboration tool. No matter if you're already involved or waiting to join in, you can pick up on some quick tips from this article.

The Deepness of the Wave

My invitation to join Google Wave came from a friend who was invited by one of his friends. When you get an invitation to Google Wave, you have the ability to invite eight other individuals and so on and so on; so the Wave is gathering strength in increments. If you have not yet been invited to Google Wave, your invitation may come shortly, and you may be confounded by what you're facing.

Google Wave is not easy to understand. It is so different from the way that the average computer user comprehends daily Internet communications that it may falter simply because of that complication. However, developers usually "get it" quickly, as Google Wave was built directly through the Google Web Toolkit, which allows developers to quickly build and maintain complex yet highly performant JavaScript front-end applications in the Java programming language.

Google Wave represents a new way to email, collaborate, instant message, share photos, translate, discuss, create wikis, develop and play games and much, much more. But, since I can approach only a few topics at a time, this article will focus on a brief introduction to this tool. Then, you will need to watch a lengthy video before you can grasp fully where I'll take you from there.

Sorry, but Google Wave is just that way – very intense, but worth the effort.

In the Beginning...

For the past two years, two men in Sydney, Australia worked diligently on a tool that may change the world as you know it.  Lars and Jens Rasmussen, along with a team of engineers, created an open source product that represents that product – but, it also represents a platform and a protocol. If you recognize Lars and Jens, it is because you know those two men also developed Google Maps.

Lars introduced Google Wave at the 2009 Google I/O. If you did not get to attend that conference, you can catch the entire introduction to Google Wave through this YouTube video (almost 1.5 hours). It is important to note that video as it is the only tool so far – other than a handful of articles (which I will share in this article) – that can show users what to expect from Google Wave. I would suggest blocking out some time to watch the entire video. If you don't watch the video, some of the information I share below may make no sense to you whatsoever.

While Google Wave can be used by anyone with an Internet connection, your viewing may be altered somewhat by your browser choice. I use Firefox, so the images you'll see in this article are gathered from that browser interface.