Google Wave: Revolutionary?

Kati Driscoll, a friend & colleague of mine who specializes in social media, posted this video about the new Google Wave. This is actually a rather impressive demonstration that I thought I would share with you all.

Basically, a "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

For a full explanation on exactly what this product is, go here. For a lengthy video preview, go here.

For those who are still a little confused as to what this is and why you would use it, here are some issues that Google Wave addresses:

• 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? (Aka, Snail Mail)

I have to say, very little impresses me these days when it comes to technology because new products are simply ideas recycled. Google Wave, however, appears more revolutionary... and it's open source to boot.

This is currently only open to web developers, but definitely worth following.