Email + Instant Messaging + Wiki = Google Wave

The Danish brother duo who developed Google Maps, Lars and Jens Rasmussen, came up with the idea for Google’s latest instant communication tool, Google Wave, in 2004. The prototype was only recently released to 100,000 developers, and is slowly trickling beyond the Internet circles. The idea behind Google Wave is to merge email with online instant messaging and wiki boards to create a live, shared communication tool that documents a conversation, and incorporates videos, photos, maps, and text for multiple participants. Google Wave provides a navigation bar of your Google contacts, complete with pictures, and while the interface looks similar to a Gmail inbox, numerous conversation threads can appear on your screen, depending on how many Waves you are actively participating in. Wavers can allow other Wavers to view what they write as they type, taking the demand for instant information a step further.

What sets Wave apart from regular email is that you can reply to a particular part of a thread’s message without a new Reply pop-up window, and you can do so directly beneath the message portion you want to respond to—keeping new ideas on a particular topic streamlined. Also, there is no waiting for email replies. You also can add participants into a Wave by dragging their contact picture into the conversation thread. If you step away and miss a part of the conversation, you can hit the Playback feature to catch up. The new way to hold office meetings and future killer of emails? Check out this video and share your thoughts.