Six ways Google Wave will change your business, career, and life

Original author: Ryan Carson
  • Transfer
Google recently announced their most ambitious project today called Google Wave . According to Google, Wave is "what would email be if it were invented today."
If you have not found time to watch the hourly video about Wave , then I would recommend you do it today.


What's the point ?


I think there are at least six reasons why Wave will have a big impact on you. However, this and all of the following statements are based on the massive use of technology. If no one uses it, then obviously she will not be able to change the world. But I'm pretty sure that Wave will be able to gain universal recognition based on these factors:
  1. Google has a worldwide audience.
  2. Google has the money to promote Wave and promote its benefits.
  3. There is greater financial gain in more efficient work. People using Wave will be able to work faster, this will leave behind those who get stuck on the good old SMTP.
  4. Wave is open-source (more on this below). If you want, you can run Wave on your own internal corporate network without sending a single byte of information to Google.
  5. You can run it in the computing cloud, which will reduce internal IT costs.

Now I want to explain why I think Wave will have a huge impact on you and your business.

1. Extensions


Google allows you to enhance the capabilities of Wave by writing Wave extensions . They are almost identical to Firefox plugins and are divided into two areas: robots and gadgets. Here is a description of the Wave Extensions website:
  1. A robot is an automated subject in a wave. Robots are applications that run in the computing cloud and can change state inside the wave. The robot can read the content of the wave in which it takes part, modify its content, add or remove wave participants, create new impulses and waves. The robot takes certain actions in response to events. For example, a robot can post wave content to a blog and update the wave with user comments. Check out the robot API overview and the robot design guide .
  2. The gadget is a small application that runs on the client. The gadget belongs to the wave, and all participants in the wave have the same state of the gadget. The only events the gadget responds to are changes in the state of its object and changes in the composition of the wave participants (for example, someone joined or left the wave). The gadget has no effect on the wave itself. Wave gadgets are usually not full-fledged applications, these are simple add-ons that make available a new type of communication. For example, a wave may include a sudoku gadget that will allow wave participants to compete and determine who will solve the problem first. Here is a guide if you are interested.




So why is Wave Extension so important? I am sure that developers and designers will be able to sell extensions to their customers or to a wider audience, perhaps this will happen as part of a special Extensions marketplace. This indicates a large potential source of new revenue, of course, this will contribute to the massive use of Wave.

2. Embed API


Google has created broad-based APIs for Wave, but one of the most interesting parts is the ability to embed Wave on any web page. Here is a great example of how this can be used in blogging. You can create a wave and post it on your blog. Then, when at any time someone leaves a comment on your blog post, it will appear as an answer in your wave in your Wave client - you do not need to visit the site.

This is a trump card, built-in waves eliminate the need to physically visit the site in order to interact with it. This is the foundation, and it’s very interesting - to change the way we now interact with blogs and content.



Why is the embed API for Wave important? This puts content at the forefront, and it becomes much easier to achieve it. If you really understand this and take these advantages into service, you will become much more effective at reaching your audience.

3. Interaction


The separation between documents and email will be completely eliminated with Wave. This will happen because the wave can be edited by more than one person. An example is taking notes during a meeting. How it can work:
  1. I am creating a wave called Website Notes
  2. I add other people from the meeting as participants in the wave.
  3. Each of the participants in the wave can make notes at the same time.
  4. After the meeting, everyone receives a list of notes.


An additional advantage is that people can communicate during the meeting, creating private answers to notes right in the wave. The creator of the wave can decide whether or not to make this chat visible to other participants.

4. Open Source


Google does not intend to own Wave. They have open source technology and created the Wave Federation Protocol . Short explanation from Google:
Wave Federation Protocol is a protocol for exchanging waves between Wave providers.
Yes, between Wave providers: anyone can raise a Wave server and interact through it, just like anyone can start their own SMTP server. The Wave protocol is open to changes by the community in order to jointly improve the exchange of information.
In order to help potential Wave providers, we plan to release a high-quality open source implementation of Google Wave client and server, as well as provide open endpoints in the federation by the time users begin to access Wave.
This means that you can either use Wave hosted on Google servers, or hosted on your server, without the slightest interaction or exchange of information with the Google server.

This is completely different from Microsoft Exchange Server, and even from Google Apps (which you cannot host on your own server).

5. Google Web Toolkit (GWT)


Wave is fully written in the Google Web Toolkit . GWT allows you to write HTML 5 web applications in Java, which are then compiled into optimized JavaScript. If you want to know more about this, check out this video explanation .
I was always wary of auto-generated code, but I think that this example may be an exception to the rule (you can see this - the provided HTML is accessible and compatible with standards). All you need to do is look at the Wave demo and then realize that GWT is really a powerful tool.
What does this mean for you? This means that if you are a web developer, then you should seriously look at GWT and the potential benefits of this technology. Java programming gives you all the traditional benefits of breakpoints and the ability to execute your code step by step.
Here is a plugin for Eclipse if you are interested.

6. "Rewind"


The wide interaction that becomes possible with the help of Wave, in reality, can confuse someone who was added to the wave after a large number of editions and answers. Enter in the search engine 'Wave Playback'. The best way to understand what this function is is to watch a video about the Wave performance from 13 minutes .
This feature allows you to step by step view all the changes in the wave for the entire time of its existence.

What do you think about this?


Obviously we think Wave is an important technology, but what do you think of this? We would love to hear your comments below.

If you're interested, here are two more videos worth watching:
  1. Co-editing : A short video explaining concurrent control and operational change in Google Wave.
  2. Natural Language Processing : A short video explaining how Google uses a huge database of search queries to implement spellchecking.



Also popular now: