What will Google do about China? Can Google’s Android defeat the iPhone? Important questions all, but I’m still curious about Google Wave, and wondering: do I want to use it?
Now undergoing testing with a limited number of users, the web-based email/word processing software was introduced last year, but it should begin open access later this year.
At its heart, Google Wave is a document living on the Internet, that can be edited by anyone collaboratively. What that means is a person can be working on one part of a document while his co-worker is changing another.
For the moment, this is a technology only available through Google and by invitation only. To be sure, my contact list has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six months — but no one is Waving with me nearly at all. And those who have don’t really know what to do with this new service. A lot of the early users — myself included — wax on at parties about tools for faster collaboration and flexible access through a computer or an Apple iPhone, Research in Motion Blackberry, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, or some other new device.
Here is a kid – I think – explaining how to use it:
When I first heard about the service, I was understandably excited. For anyone whose life is dominated by the ideas of text, documents and collaboration, Wave seemed like a breath of fresh air.
