When the first email was sent in 1971, the age of electronic communication was born. So when Lars Rasmussen asked himself, “what would email look if it was invented today?”, he inevitably answered the question by developing real-time communication platform, Google Wave.

Google Wave will revolutionize the way we interact by combining email with instant messaging, chat, wikis, blogs and social networks, all of which can be embedded onto websites. Google is encouraging creativity by releasing the entire source code where API developers and individuals can transform apps, websites and their functionalities.

What is a Wave?

Traditional email functions similarly to snail mail. However, a wave is a threaded conversation between two or multiple parties which occurs in real-time. It is hosted in a central location to free up data usage normally used sending emails, sometimes with extremely large attachments.

At the Google I/O conference held in May 2009, the development team suggested 40 percent of instant messaging time is spent waiting for the other party to finish typing. With Google Wave, each keystroke will instantly bounce off the server to the recipient increasing productivity potential. The powerful spell checker will correct errors ‘on-the-fly’, understanding the difference between even the most similar words and their contexts. The translation tool will allow parties with language barriers to interact word-by-word. All of these components are aimed at increasing communication and productivity.

The clean interface allows users to drag and drop photos, videos and music files directly onto a wave. Anything on a wave can be edited, customized or shared with anyone at anytime. A large group can plan projects on a single wave and then break down into smaller wavelets to work on tasks. As waves can be embedded onto websites, forums will transform as updates occur instantly.

The 3 P’s:  Product, Platform & Protocol

The development team introduced Wave as a tool which promotes open-source ethics. They claim the potential for API developers is endless with this mentality. They broke down the 3 P’s of Google Wave.

Product

The Google Wave product is an application built using Google Web Toolkit. It allows users to complete the simple functions of Wave including messaging and drag-and-drop capabilities.

Platform

As a platform, Google Wave will have extensions and applications within waves. As Wave is completely open source, developers can create Wave tools for games, music, photos and videos in unimaginable ways. As has been seen with iPhone and Blackberry, the potential for applications is vast.

The Google Wave platform can be embedded directly onto websites making these applications available to any user with a computer and the internet.

Protocol

The Google Wave protocol is the manner in which information is stored and how it is shared. It is revolutionary that Google is releasing its source coding, yet this has been done to promote other companies to create their own Wave versions, services and applications. The main protocol is that Wave is a live, real-time communication tool.

Wave Marketing?

Many people are wondering how email marketing will be influenced if Google Wave picks up steam as the new communication tool. Marketing will still be prevalent but the manner in which marketers interact with clients may alter dramatically. Wave will open the doors for new innovative methods to engage consumers. And, as with any new technological medium, the potential for growth is unlimited. ‘Wave marketing’ will take many of the staples that come with traditional email marketing and allow marketers to use unique methods to deliver their message; although it will take several years before those methods became apparent.