Google Wave is Google’s Social Network
If you use Google Mail, get ready to undergo an extreme e-mail makeover social networking style. Yesterday, I read word that Google is set to release their closest version of Facebook. Google’s own blog explains the ideas behind Google Wave:
You create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content – it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.
This multi-layered media format in the user interface provides users with the tools for media collabration and full editing controls to each participant. Google Wave’s Primary features include natural language tools extending control technology which provides real-time collaboration. Wave also has server based models provide contextual suggestions and spelling correction which is nice to have. Google Wave APIs can embed waves in other sites or add live social gadgets.
So if you are a fan of Google’s other free software services or tools such as Analytics, Google Earth, Google Reader, and Google News you can welcome the Wave with open arms. No with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such social networking website, one must decide who to keep informed about what and when. No official launch date has been released, but you can sign up for the wave at wave.google.com. Let’s start getting social …virtually! 
