As a big fan of Google Docs, I was excited to learn about the announcement of Google Wave at the Google I/O Developer Conference in San Francisco earlier this week. According to the conference, a "wave" is defined as: "equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."
Although I'm not entirely clear on all the specifics, Google Wave seems to be an efficient combination of various services that Google already offers, including Gmail, Gchat and Google Docs. The demonstration of Google Wave at the conference reveals how you and a group can be in separate locations editing a Google Doc or adding/sharing photos, videos, etc in real time, and at the same time and in the same application you are also chatting with the entire group or just with individual members. According to Lars Rasmussen's post on the official Google Blog, Google Wave is "concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave."
When I look back at how often I used Google Docs for projects just this past year, and how long these assignments would take even WITH access to these applications, it makes me cringe to think about how only two years ago students had to complete those same projects without having these tools (not unlike high school, where students would wonder how on earth people did math without graphing calculators). And I can only think how damn lucky and efficient the next generation of students will be with this new arsenal of Google web applications at their disposal.
It also makes me think of Rob Hof's article on "New Google Search Features", where he describes the "fine line" that Google must follow when announcing a new application such as Google Wave, and hoping these developments don't provide Christine Varney and the Justice Department with the ammunition for an antitrust suit. But talk of monopolies aside, I'm still counting all the free time I'm going to have once we figure out how to use Google Wave for our future group projects.
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