Will Google Wave Change the World?

C'mon. Don't you know the answer?

Because I don't. But it looks pretty sweet...and I can't wait to try it out.
Note: Make sure that you watch the video @ the bottom where the developers demo the system. It's absolutely amazing what they can do with it.

What is Google Wave? Imagine if your Gmail worked like Facebook..where you can integrate comments and IM messaging into your conversations...so it actually feels like a conversation.
Makes sense, right? What if I told you it was all in real time...with instant updates that everyone can see...right down to your typing it in.
Confused? I understand. It's a lot to digest...but it really works that way. Again...only the tip o the iceberg...and it's all amazing.

This guy explains its potential impact much better than I ever could. Also, here's where I first heard about it.
I also love the way Tim O'Reilly describes it in his post title: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?

That came from Lars Rasmussen, one of the masterminds behind this groundbreaking project that many are calling the intro to Web 3.0.

Here's what Lars also has to say about his mission with brother Jens for the project:

We were excited to join Google and help create what would become Google Maps. But we also started thinking about what might come next for us after maps.

As always, Jens came up with the answer: communication. He pointed out that two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Since then, so many different forms of communication had been invented — blogs, wikis, collaborative documents, etc. — and computers and networks had dramatically improved. So Jens proposed a new communications model that presumed all these advances as a starting point....

We started with a set of tough questions:

• Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication — email versus chat, or conversations versus documents?
• Could a single communications model span all or most of the systems in use on the web today, in one smooth continuum? How simple could we make it?
• What if we tried designing a communications system that took advantage of computers' current abilities, rather than imitating non-electronic forms?

With that in mind...
Here is the Google Wave Developer Preview led by Lars @ Google I/O 2009:



Cheers.
-CO-