Google Waves at users

Google have just announced an amazing new... thing—Google wave. Developed in Australia, it's a web tool that, even in it's early stages, promises to revolutionise the way that we communicate. Watch this video (I warn you, it's 1 hour 20 minutes) to learn more. Watch even just a little bit to get the idea. Basically it works by using APIs that send XML data to a central server and onwards to those viewing the 'wave'. Seems pretty unremarkable? What's great about it is that it allows you to add users, robots and extensions to regular communication. For those who didn't watch the video, think about live editing by more than one person, live drag and drop attachments (using Gears), live updates of Google Maps, and being able to have an almost instant messenger style chats with almost anyone. It's kind of like a highly editable chatroom. This could become an incredibly useful tool for graphic designers. Apart from the obvious ease with which it enables things like project management, imagine being able to share reference material with Wave users without having to worry about file compatibility or waiting for them to receive the file and then reply. Perhaps the most exciting propostion would be combining a Wave with something like a Phixr extension—thereby creating collaborative design across the web. Instantly. I'm very keen for this. You should be too. This is the sort of thing Richard Seymour was talking about: "When anything new comes in ‘big time’, we think of it as an ‘it’. An entity. And you are going through this right now, with ‘the’ internet. The internet is not a thing at all, it’s a [gigantic, global] ‘how’, not an it." Google Wave is the logical extension of this—it is much more about the way in which we communicate than what is actually being said.