Surfing the Google Wave

Google Wave is an amazing new technology that has the ability to change the web far more than anything else I've seen.

Wave integrates lots of different ways that people currently communicate on the web, pulling together email, Instant Messaging and social sharing websites. But far more than just lumping them together, Google Wave promises to redefine the way we use these technologies so much that they won't be separate at all.

The smoothness of operation looks amazing - everything is realtime, so you can see the other person typing on your screen, and you can type into the same area at the same time. Then sharing a video is as simple as drag-and-drop the media file into the same window.

From the Google Wave website:

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

This video is a preview release, so there's no way to try this out yourself unless you're one of the lucky few developers involved with testing. But even just watching this is exciting!