A few days ago at Google I/O 2009, Google announced a new product named Google Wave. It is a new service that combines email, instant messaging and forums all into one. It provides real time collaboration on documents. Google claims that email is antiquated, which I agree with, and we need something new to replace it. The problem with email is you have so many copies of the email, everything you reply to an email there is at least 2 different copies. This is where Google Wave comes in, when you reply to a Google Wave it stays as one wave.
Another very cool thing about it is you can see what the other person is typing as they are replying in real time which turns into almost a chat like feature. Of course you can turn it off you don’t like people watching you as you type. This feature comes in really handy when you are collaborating on a document, you can have many people making changes to the same document at the same time.
It can actually do so many different things that it’s crazy. You can integrate it into anything, your blog, forums, etc. Another cool thing is you can set up your own Google Wave server and brand it with your companies name.
The website integration is insane, say you make a comment on some one’s website that has Google Wave integrated. You can go to your Google Wave account and view the comment and see other threaded comments. So you will be able to manage and view all of your comments/posts that you make on every website in one place.
If you have the time I would suggest watching this whole video. It is long, about 1h 20m but it is worth if it you care about upcoming technology.