Automatic for the Internets

Google Wave is a fast, easy way to communicate with people in real-time. Real-time is a word that gets thrown around these days, but what does it actually mean? It means that if you are writing a message to some one or a group of people using Google Wave, they can see what you are writing as you are writing it! Pretty cool, huh? Just be careful what you write.

Google Wave works kind of like an email. You select who you want to 'wave' with and then you start typing. As you are making a wave, there are many new things you can do such as add a poll, add a map to where you're talking about, and even embed a game that your wave party can play. This brings to light a whole new way of communicating with people. Say you are planning a party, for example. There's so many decisions to be made, like would your guests rather have black or white napkins? Well now, you can simply put up a poll and let the people decide. How democratic of you. Also, for all those people who ask "where's your house again?," now you can give them a map to where they need to go. Bam, no more annoying directionally-challenged guests.

Google has also opened up Wave apps to third parties. This means any developer can make an application for Google Wave! Now, you too can join the app revolution. If any developer is free to make apps, there's no telling how far this technology is going to advance. For example, soon you will be able to conference call through Google Wave using an app called Ribbit.

The only thing that is holding Google Wave back is people can only use it on an invitation basis at the moment. For Google Wave to reach it's full potential, all of your friends, family, co-workers, etc. need to have it and be logged-in often. To communicate in real-time the people you are trying to communicate with have to be using Google Wave when you are communicating with them. Right now, there are not many people who know about Google Wave - much less have an account they use regularly. Once it starts to catch on, this technology has the potential to completely change the way we communicate with each other.

For more information on Google Wave, check out their website by clicking on this link. If you would like an invitation, you can request one here or ask one of your friends who has Google Wave to send you one (each Google Wave user is given 10 invitations).