Articles, Strategic Innovation, Technology, Web

Twitter exploded with tinyurls and retweets, as every geek with a pulse forwarded and OMG’ed the 80 minute preview (embedded below). The excitement was profound and immediate. I made some time to watch the video so I could meaningfully participate in the discussion, and lo and behold, I was excited too.

You see, a little while ago, Google set out to answer a few tough questions, as it explained on its blog:

• 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?

These are great questions. The summary answer is Wave.

There are 5 core themes that specifically interest me at this stage:

1. Redesigning the nature of our digital interactions
2. Open source solutions
3. Opportunities with the API
4. Opportunities with pattern recognition
5. Integrative features

1. Redesigning the nature of our digital interactions

When Gmail first came on the scene with its threaded conversation system, everyone who tried it immediately knew that it just felt right. It was a vast improvement on the original Outlook-style stack of messages that most of us were forced to adopt. Over the years, Gmail has lured millions of users from other email services due to its speed, generosity, intuitive interface and supporting features. It was a step in the right direction; still email, just an vastly improved experience.

Gmail gave us greater context and control in our digital conversations. Facebook helped us orientate and network smoothly within our evolving social spheres. And, Twitter nurtured our desires to broadcast while helping us tap into the hive mind of the techno savvy et al. It appears that Google Wave is taking several steps further down the path, disrupting our current conceptions of what our digital interactions ought to be.

Wave is emphasizing several critical virtues: personalization, real-time interactions, open access to data, and integration of multiple forms of media from multiple sources. These virtues are central to the new emerging standard of meaningful online interactivity. Due to its robust and flexible style of communication, I can easily see Wave attracting many early adopters in academia, creative industries and other collaboration-intensive environments. It will likely spread naturally from there.

2. Open source solutions

The virtues of open source ought to be well understood – if you’re unclear, do your homework and come back.

I’m glad to see that Google continues to develop strong experience  in the realm of open source . Currently, there are over 260 open source projects (including the Chrome browser and Android operating system) listed in Google Code (the company’s haven for code-hungry developers). Its blog on open source activities may only be read by techies, but the fruits of the philosophy are enjoyed by all. As an open project, Google is hoping that Wave will become a reflection of our best ideas and aspirations.

I am not going to write more on this topic at the moment – postponing further discussion for a dedicated post sometime in the future. If you have anything to add regarding open source and Wave, please comment below.

3. Opportunities with API

Excerpt from the Wave site:

What is the Google Wave API?

The Google Wave API allows developers to use and enhance Google Wave through two primary types of development:

• Extensions: Build robot extensions to automate common tasks or build gadget extensions to provide a new way for users to interact
• Embed: Make your site more collaborative by dropping in a Wave

Google Wave is currently available in a developer preview as the APIs and product continue to evolve. Accounts on the developer sandbox will be given out to people intending to build with the Google Wave APIs prior to the public release.

The best and most frequently-used Twitter apps run via the service’s API. Why is that? Well, perhaps the reason is best explained by Rich Friedrich’s famous quote:  ”All Of The Innovative People Don’t Work For Your Company.” With Google Wave, we’ll undoubtedly encounter significant innovation powered by the API. Both freeform experimental applications and professionally designed interfaces will emerge, perhaps leading to a revolution in how digital conversations take place.

I’m particularly excited to see how academia will leverage it, enabling search around the conversations typically restricted to classrooms and lecture halls. How do you think it might be used?

4. Opportunities with pattern recognition

Sergey Brin once rhetorically asked (paraphrasing): Why ask humans to do what computers can do much better?

One of my favorite examples of how Google leverages pattern recognition to provide users with a powerful and valuable service is its “did you mean?…” feature. Whenever you type something incorrectly into Google’s search engine, it will almost always correct your spelling. Not only that, but sometimes it’ll recognize common phrases or articulations that appear to have been generated through some type of futuristic mind-reading capability. How does it do this? Is there a gigantic dictionary? No. Each time a user executes a search and then immediately corrects the term and searches again, Google considers this a typographical correction. There’s no handmade dictionary in the Google brain, but rather a clever pattern recognition system that detects common misspellings or lazy keystrokes.

We can expect Wave to feature some powerful pattern recognition services as it accumulates users and data. By analyzing how people use it, Google can hone Wave into a hyper intelligent facilitator of communication. It’ll predict our need for media assets as we engage in discussion; it’ll recommended resources for knowledge enhancements; it’ll tap into the social sphere and introduce you to others of like-minds. Of course, privacy options will exist to protect those who fear the over lookers, but for those who embrace digital openness, the possibilities are astounding.

5. Integrative Features

The last theme that interests me is a speculative one of hope and desire. I work with a lot of different software and media formats. My job requires me to regularly integrate multiple forms of media from multiple applications into a synthesized experience. To anyone else with this work-style, you know how time consuming and frustrating the little tasks can be. The preview of Wave demonstrated some handy manipulation of images with some neat drag and drop features, among others. I am an advanced user, who can assemble almost anything I encounter. But for others, it’s a burden that hinders the quality of their output and is demotivating right from the start.

My hope is that Wave will be a leader in the race to truly integrate most formats into a collaborative sandbox. File management, video playback, voice conferencing, asynchronous access to PDF, etc. I want it all. And like Freddy Mercury said, “I want it now”. Not just for me, but mostly for others who are less savvy. It’s time that we simplify the process of integrating typically incompatible features. Hopefully, Wave will do that by heightening the average user’s willingness and effectiveness of working with data forms more sophisticated than text.

Summary

This will definitely be an app to keep an eye on. Wave bears a lot of promise. I have a feeling that, like other Google apps, it’ll improve smoothly and naturally as more and more users adopt it. It’ll likely find a few core user groups at the beginning and then spread like wildfire among the increasingly vibrant community of web-service-early-adopters. Perhaps it’ll leverage the Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and Facebook APIs along with a native connection to Gmail, creating a single environment for one’s web needs. The permutations are scary-huge, as is my appreciation for the Google crew who push forward and break standards in the hopes of developing something more efficient and effective.

For those who want to watch the preview video, all 80 minutes can be enjoyed here.  Cheers, AMR.