Google Wave

Google Wave
Googlewave.svg
Google Wave.png
Developer(s) Google
Initial release May 27, 2009 (2009-05-27)
Platform Cross-platform
Type Web application/protocol
License Apache License (only Google Wave Federation Prototype Server and ConsoleClient)
Website http://wave.google.com

Google Wave is an online software application formerly developed by Google. It was described as "a new web application for real-time communication and collaboration".[1] It was first announced at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009.[2][3] It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking.[4] It has a strong collaborative and real-time[5] focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, spelling/grammar checking, automated translation among 40 languages,[3] and numerous other extensions.[5] Initially released only to developers, a preview release of Google Wave was extended to 100,000 users in September 2009, each allowed to invite additional users. Google accepted most requests submitted starting the 29th of November 2009, soon after the September extended release of the technical preview. On May 19, 2010, Google Wave was released to the general public.[6]

On August 4, 2010, Google announced the suspension of standalone Wave development and the intent of maintaining the web site at least for the remainder of the year.[7]

Contents

Product

Google Wave is a new Internet communications platform. It is written in Java using OpenJDK and its web interface uses the Google Web Toolkit. Google Wave works like previous messaging systems such as email and Usenet, but instead of sending a message along with its entire thread of previous messages, or requiring all responses to be stored in each user's inbox for context, message documents (referred to as waves) that contain complete threads of multimedia messages (blips) are perpetually stored on a central server. Waves are shared with collaborators who can be added or removed from the wave at any point during a wave's existence.

Waves, described by Google as "equal parts conversation and document", are hosted XML documents that allow seamless and low latency concurrent modifications.[8] Any participant of a wave can reply anywhere within the message, edit any part of the wave, and add participants at any point in the process. Each edit/reply is a blip and users can reply to individual blips within waves. Recipients are notified of changes/replies in all waves in which they are active and, upon opening a wave, may review those changes in chronological order. In addition, waves are live. All replies/edits are visible in real-time, letter-by-letter, as they are typed by the other collaborators. Multiple participants may edit a single wave simultaneously in Google Wave. Thus, waves can function not only as e-mails and threaded conversations but also as an instant messaging service when many participants are online at the same time. A wave may repeatedly shift roles between e-mail and instant messaging depending on the number of users editing it concurrently. The ability to show messages as they are typed can be disabled, similar to conventional instant messaging.[4]

The ability to modify a wave at any location lets users create collaborative documents, edited in a manner akin to wikis. Waves can easily link to other waves. It is in many respects a more advanced forum.[9] A wave can be read and known to exist by only one person, or by two or more. It can also be public, available for reading and writing to everyone on the Wave.

The history of each wave is stored within it. Collaborators may use a playback feature in Google Wave to observe the order in which a wave was edited, blips that were added, and who was responsible for what in the wave.[4][5] The history may also be searched by a user to view and/or modify specific changes, such as specific kinds of changes or messages from a single user.[3]

Open source

Google has released most of the source code as open source software,[3] allowing the public to develop its features through extensions.[3] Google will also allow third-parties to build their own Wave services as quickly as possible (be it private or commercial) because it wants the Wave protocol to replace the e-mail protocol.[3][10][11] Initially, Google will be the only Wave service provider, but it is hoped that, as the protocol becomes standardized and the prototype server becomes stable, other service providers will launch their own Wave services, possibly designing their own unique web-based clients as is common with many email service providers. The possibility also exists for native Wave clients to be made, as demonstrated by Google with their CLI-based console client.[12].

Google released initial open-source components of Wave:[13]

  1. the operational transformation (OT) code,
  2. the underlying wave model, and
  3. a basic client/server prototype that uses the wave protocol

In addition, Google has provided some detail about the next phases of the open-source release:[12]

  1. wave model code that is a simplified version of Google's production code and is tied to the OT code; this code will evolve into the shared code base that Google will use and expects that others will too
  2. a testing and verification suite for people who want to do their own implementation (for example, for porting the code to other languages)

Reception and end of development

During the initial launch of Google Wave, invitations were widely sought by users, and were sold on auction sites.[14] However, with growth of user base, many were confused as to how to use it.[15] Google Wave has been called an overhyped disappointment for the first generation of users[16] with dismal usability[17] that humans may not be able to comprehend.[18]

Despite these criticisms, Google Wave still received positive press coverage for its potential uses.[18][19] On August 4, 2010, however, Google announced that the product would no longer be developed as a standalone product due to lack of interest.[20]

A response to the news of the end of development has come from supporting Wave users in the form of a website.[21] Since Google's announcement, the website registered over 30,000 signatures in support of Google Wave being continued.[22]

Federation Protocol

Google Wave provides federation using an extension of XMPP, the open Wave Federation Protocol. Being an open protocol, anyone can use it to build a custom Wave system and become a wave provider.[23] The use of an open protocol is intended to parallel the openness and ease of adoption of the e-mail protocol and, like e-mail, allow communication regardless of provider. Google hopes that waves may replace e-mail as the dominant form of Internet communication.[3][10][11] In this way, Google intends to be only one of many wave providers.[3][10][11] It can also be used as a supplement to e-mail, instant messaging, FTP, etc.

A key feature of the protocol is that waves are stored on the service provider's servers instead of being sent between users. Waves are federated; copies of waves and wavelets are distributed by the wave provider of the originating user to the providers of all other participants in a particular wave or wavelet so all participants have immediate access to up-to-date content. The originating wave server is responsible for hosting, processing, and concurrency control of waves.[10][11] The protocol allows private reply wavelets within parent waves, where other participants have no access or knowledge of them.[10][11]

Security for the communications is provided via Transport Layer Security authentication, and encrypted connections and waves/wavelets are identified uniquely by a service provider's domain name and ID strings. User-data is not federated, that is, not shared with other wave providers.

Firefly connections

The name was inspired by the Firefly television series[24] in which a wave is an electronic communication (often consisting of a video call or video message).[24] During the developer preview, a number of references were made to the series such as Lars Rasmussen replying to a message with "shiny", a word commonly used in the series to mean cool or good, and the crash message of Wave being a popular quotation from the series: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"[3][25] Another common error message, "Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret!" is a quote from Kaylee Frye in the 2005 motion-picture Firefly continuation, Serenity, and it is matched with a sign declaring that "This wave is experiencing some turbulence and might explode. If you don't want to explode..." which is another reference to the opening of the film.

During an event in Amsterdam, Netherlands[26] it became apparent that the sixty strong team that is currently working on Wave in Sydney, Australia, use Joss Whedon-related references to describe, among others, the sandbox version of Wave, called Dollhouse after the TV-series by Firefly producer Joss Whedon, which was aired on Fox in the U.S. The development of external extensions is codenamed "Serenity", after the spaceship used in Firefly and Serenity.

Extension programming interface

Google Wave is extensible through an application programming interface (API). It provides extensions in the form of Gadgets and Robots, and is embeddable by dropping interactive windows into a given wave on external sites, such as blog sites.[3][27].

The last version of robots API is 2.0.[28].

Google Wave also supports extension installers, which bundle back-end elements (robots and gadgets) and front-end user interface elements into an integrated package. Users may install extensions directly within the Wave client using an extension installer.

Extensions

Google Wave extensions are add-ins that may be installed on Google Wave to enhance its functionality. They may be Internet bots (robots) to automate common tasks, or gadgets to extend or change user interaction features, e.g., posting blips on microblog feeds or providing RSVP recording mechanisms.[3][4][27]

Over 150 Google Wave extensions have been developed either in the form of Gadgets or Robots.[29][30]

Robots

Robots are automated participants within a wave. They can also automate common tasks. They could talk with users and interact with waves. They could provide information from outside sources (i.e. Twitter, stock quotes, etc.).

A robot is an automated participant on a wave. They read the contents of a wave in which it participates, modify the wave's contents, add or remove participants, and create new blips and new waves. Robots perform actions in response to events. For example, a robot might publish the contents of a wave to a public blog site and update the wave with user comments.

Robots may be added as participants to the Wave itself (they may appear as a contact person in the wave). In theory, a robot can be added anywhere a human participant can be involved.

Gadgets

Gadget extensions are applications that run within the wave, and to which all participants have access. Robots and Gadgets can be used together, but they generally serve different purposes. A gadget is an application users could participate with, many of which are built on Google’s OpenSocial platform. A good comparison would be iGoogle gadgets or Facebook applications.

The gadget is triggered based on the user action. They can be best described as applications installed on a mobile phone. For example, a wave might include a sudoku gadget that lets the wave participants compete to see who can solve the puzzle first.

Gadgets may be added to individual waves and all the participants share and interact with the gadget.

Compatible third-party server applications

The following servers are compatible with the Google Wave protocol:

Adoption outside of Google

Wave has been adopted for corporate applications by Novell for Novell Pulse,[31], SAP for Cloudave,[32], and Lotus for Project Vulcan.[33]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Google Wave Overview". Google. 
  2. ↑ TechCrunch (May 28, 2009): Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web.
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 "I/O Conference Google Wave Keynote". Google. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "About Google Wave". Google. http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Google Wave Developer Blog". Google. http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-google-wave-apis-what-can.html. 
  6. ↑ http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005394-264.html
  7. ↑ http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html
  8. ↑ http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/operational-transform
  9. ↑ http://variableghz.com/2009/10/google-wave-review/
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/google-wave-architecture
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/internal-client-server-protocol
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Google Wave Federation Protocol and Open Source Updates". Google. http://groups.google.com/group/wave-protocol/browse_thread/thread/618ff4e9ef477e80?pli=1. 
  13. ↑ "Google Wave Federation Protocol and Open Source Updates". Google. http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-wave-federation-protocol-and.html. 
  14. ↑ Google Wave Invite Selling for $70 on eBay
  15. ↑ Christian Science Monitor: So you've got google wave, now what?
  16. ↑ Linux Mag 2009 Review
  17. ↑ Google Wave Failure on Milwaukee SEO
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Google Wave to get its own App Store (Engadget)
  19. ↑ CNET Predictions for 2010
  20. ↑ ZDNet on GW's death
  21. ↑ '"Save Google Wave" Site Forms'; A web business news site article (Webpronews.com)
  22. ↑ http://www.savegooglewave.com
  23. ↑ "Google Wave Federation Protocol". Google. http://www.waveprotocol.org/. 
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Cochrane, Nate (May 29, 2009). "Opinion: Google's wave drowns the bling in Microsoft's Bing". iT News Australia. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/104396,opinion-googles-wave-drowns-the-bling-in-microsofts-bing.aspx. Retrieved June 3, 2009. 
  25. ↑ Originally said by Wash at 6:36, in Serenity; Firefly: The Complete Series (Blu-ray), 2008, 20th Century Fox.
  26. ↑ Rottmann, Ralf (October 30, 2009). "Google Wave to be opened for federation today!". The Next Web. http://thenextweb.com/appetite/2009/10/30/breaking-google-wave-opened-federation-today-host/. 
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "Google Wave API - Google Code". Google. http://code.google.com/apis/wave/. 
  28. ↑ "Introducing Robots API v2: The Rise of Active Robots". Google. http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2010/03/introducing-robots-api-v2-rise-of.html. 
  29. ↑ http://wave-samples-gallery.appspot.com/
  30. ↑ http://www.wextensions.com
  31. ↑ http://www.novell.com/products/pulse/
  32. ↑ http://www.cloudave.com/link/sap-gravity-prototype-business-collaboration-using-google-wave
  33. ↑ http://www.theshinywave.com/collaboration/project-vulcan-google-wave-for-business/

External links