Google Wave Buzz

For those of you who work in tech, you've almost certainly heard of it. For those of you who aren't familiar, Google recently unveiled their latest and supposedly greatest development in a very long time.

What is Wave? It seems like everyone is scrambling to answer this question because the product is a bit complex to interpret. The best general answer is that Wave is a blend of features from e-mail, social networking, and chat. If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of the experience, check out Google's Wave about page.

First of all, this product is still way early on in its development stages. This seems to be something everyone wants to forget as a search on the topic will reveal scads of critical feedback in forums, articles and blogs. 

That being said, Wave looks feature-heavy and therefor complicated, so far. Hopefully they will streamline the product for the overwhelming number of users (including myself) who find the process of learning a new interface to be tedious. 

When using Wave, you have a list of contacts, much like your list of friends in Facebook or Myspace. When you create a new Wave, which involves the simple click of a button, you select friends from your list to add to the conversation. In this way, it's kind of like e-mail thread-specific social networking.

Thanks to Wave's many features which emulate some facets of social networking, a lot of voices have raised the question, "Is Google trying to replace Facebook, Myspace and Twitter with Wave?" Whether they are trying to or not, I personally find it unlikely. The core foundation of Wave is that you specify who is included in a thread. This means that Wave etiquette will probably develop around an idea of exclusivity, or, more simply, not bothering acquaintances with things that you think might not interest them. This is where (so far, unless Wave changes its structure) Twitter and Facebook part ways with Wave. These social networking sites allow you to see what everyone on your friends list is saying and therefor, keep dialogs going between individuals that might not otherwise contact each other for the purpose of conversation.

Whatever its current flaws may be, Wave certainly looks like a fun app to try out. At this early stage in its development, it looks like it has a lot of potential and it would not be surprising if it became very widely used in the near future when its kinks are worked out.

Note: Did Google adopt the term "Wave" based on the TV show Firefly in which the word referred to incoming communications? Wave developer Lars Rasmussen also uses the Firefly term "shiny" in the demonstration thread at the unveiling of the product, so the answer is probably yes.

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