Google Wave: The Next Big Thing

I couldn't sleep. Since I heard about it yesterday, I just couldn't get it off my mind.

Google revealed yesterday what I predict will be the next big thing that will change how the world communicates since the invention of e-mail. It's called Google Wave. 

Lars Rasumussen, one of the guys who developed Google Maps, talked about how the idea came about in the Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009. This was Google's answer to a fundamental question they posed: What would email look like if it were invented today?

Mashable offers to explain what Google Wave is in a nutshell: Google Wave is a real-time communication platform. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. You can bring a group of friends or business partners together to discuss how your day has been or share files.

In a few years, here's what I predict what will happen: No more e-mails. No more instant messenger. No more keeping of different versions of files in your computer folders. Much less face-to-face meetings. People working on documents or files together online real-time, even if they were miles apart or they were just beside you. Social network and blog discussions will look like everyone typing at the same time on the same computer screen. No more reply button to send a message, just type. Lots and lots of online collaboration happening real-time. It's mind blowing.

And it's here. It's not a concept. Google has a work-in-progress already running. But we need to wait until towards the end of this year to experience it. Not too far off.

Below is a screenshot of the Google Wave interface. Mind you, it runs on the browsers that we use today -- both on computers and mobile phones:

Can't wait to see it in action? Here's the demo from the developers conference: (It might take long to load. Everyone's on it.)

I'll write more about it in the next few days. Still trying to calm myself from too much excitement.