Google Wave – The Next Email?

This week, search engine giant Google announced a new service concept based around a more multimedia version of the common email. Google are calling their new ‘Wave’ idea ‘what email would look like if it were invented today.’ That might be a little bit of good old fashion PR hype, but the service does sound quite interesting and what’s more, it’s completely open source.

Pushing past the hype and jargon Google have put out about the service, Wave is essentially a hybrid mix of documents, email and IM services. If it helps to imagine it better, a ‘Wave’ is a little like a mix between an email and a wiki. Any user can edit it or add new content in real time and you can rewind to revert any changes made to see what’s going on.

Obviously, such a media-rich, real time concept is difficult to explain in plain text and it’ll probably be in the Beta stages that we really get a feel of how Wave might work. With Google aiming to reshape the future of how we use the web to communicate with each other, it’s nothing if not an ambitious project.

One of the most exciting things about Wave is that it will be open source – that’s great news because it won’t be another service run and owned by Google. It’s being developed as a standard (like email) rather than a service (like g-mail) so anyone will be able to run their own server, even though different waves will still be able to communicate with each other. This is good news for people who think Google is getting a little ‘big’ in terms of the amount of services many people use it for and should put any fears about privacy to rest.

However you look at it, Wave is an interesting concept. Right now it’s too far in its infancy to tell if it will be a household name or a total failure in the coming years. Either way, it’s an exciting concept that will be well worth keeping up with over the next few months.

[ Google Wave ]

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