Last week saw Google introducing the world to Wave at almost exactly the right time to steal the thunder from Microsoft’s launch of its new search engine, Bing.

Google Wave might revolutionize the way we communicate online – a single application combining email, instant messaging, commenting and realtime collaboration in a form which Google calls “part conversation, part document”. One interesting result might mean saying sayonara to hello and goodbye.

Wave allows online written communication to simulate verbal conversations, in which participants interact in real time rather than at the end of discreet “messages” sent and received at various intervals. In Wave, Alice might ask Bob a question, but Bob gets the gist of the question part way through Alice’s message, and begins to compose (mentally or actually) his answer before Alice has hit “send”. Just like a verbal conversation.

So no need for the usual email etiquette of “Thx, Alice”, “kind regards”, or “best, Bob” to end every message anymore. Of course this means some Wave conversations will mimic IM chat, not email – and even IM conversations usually end when one person signs off, goes to lunch or remembers that actually they’d really better get on with some work. We all have subtle techniques for drawing verbal conversations to a close, and a similar etiquette exists for IM. But in Wave, if there’s no concept of “hanging-up” we might find ourselves developing new ways of being polite (“no you jump off the Wave, no you jump off the Wave, …”). Is a Wave conversation ever really ended, or only paused?

Wave is designed around “conversations” rather than “messages”, but as with verbal conversations and endless corporate email trails Waves may well stray off topic, breaking the metaphor. Where will the boundary be between one conversation and another? Discipline will still be required, Wave or no Wave. We’ll surely need to find some kind of equivalent to “goodbye” – or some orderly way to close a Wave permanently.

Stop the Wave, I want to get off!

As well as being potentially unending, a realtime Wave conversation will also be faster and richer than an email or IM message (though nothing new to IRC veterans). But that means it might require all of my attention – no time for multi-tasking between messenger and YouTube when I can see every character my fellow participants are writing, as they’re writing it. So will I find myself torn between the always-open freedom of the Wave and the need to give attention to something else? Will I be able to cope with multiple concurrent Waves in various states? Will I find myself even more of a “Wave Slave” than I am an Email Slave right now?

Maybe we’ll find our online existence becomes just one huge group conversation. Maybe a new “generation W” will find working while Waving as natural as walking and talking at the same time. Maybe Google will give us oldies the option to use Wave in “slow and sedate” mode, and email will become the new snail mail. One thing’s for sure: Wave has the potential to change communication behaviour just as email, IM and SMS before it making it a truly disruptive technology.

Wave image by striatic on flickr

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