The No OS
Anyone else see the Google Wave?
This video is a bit long (over an hour); but it does show how Google Wave works. I like the introduction of it where the speakers shares that this works in HTML 5 and not as a desktop application.
No OS required. Just a browser.
This isn’t my first post about the shift from using a hard-drive operating system to the web OS. Wave is another step in that direction by calling their new system a Product, Platform, and a Protocol.
We are moving to the personalized web in leaps.
At 6 minutes and about 15 seconds in, the speaker starts sharing how email has evolved from sending individual messages to the Wave system which is about shared conversation. At 9 minutes in, watch how a conversation can be split in structure to allow you to respond to certain parts of it. In other words, you can have threaded discussions inside each message. You have to see it!
Instant messaging changed as well at the 10:20 minute mark. As you type, the message appears. You don’t have to wait to hit enter. Messaging is INSTANT. You don’t have to spend time watching “this person is replying”. You can be crafting your response as they type it.
At 15:30, you can see how easy it is to add images to a conversation. Click and drag. No import, export, upload, download. Click and drag.
At 20:00, if you use Google blogger you can see how conversations can spill in to the wave from blog comments. Works on cell phones too!
At 35:30, collaborative editing with LIVE changes seen. This is something missing from the current Google Document tool. But with this WAVE, you can see the changes occur immediately.
At 44:20, spell check is explained to work inside context. It doesn’t isolate words, the tool checks the context of the word in the sentence.
At 49:00, there is a show of how a gadget made by a developer changed the conversation in a Wave. Since this audience is developers, the speakers show them how gadgets can improve the conversations. Interesting to see that the gadget developed in the conversation shows how to make a threaded discussion into an “e-vite” type of tool.
This part of the conversation turns into how the Wave connects to Google docs, maps, earth, etc. Using “bots”, the tools are now part of the collaborative environment. They demo using a poll generator tool that literally combines the Google Spreadsheet (Form) tool into the live conversation of the wave. At 57:30, you can see how they use an extension to connect the Wave tool with something like Twitter.
Wave is an Open Protocol so you can customize your own waves and wave tools. For developers, they can build their own extensions into Wave similar to how Firefox allows developers to add their own additional programs.
I can honestly say that this idea is very interesting. It isn’t about email, messaging, document editing, etc. This is about a one-stop shop place for collaboration. Live conversation and collaborative editing that forms in waves and shares in waves. As mentioned in the last post, this all involves less clicking! Less wait time. Less load time. Instant communication. Very cool!
