Google Wave

So, I got bored today (as you can see, 3 posts in one day. Oh my freaking gawd!)

Anyway, I was going through my different websites, and hit up College Humor. And I came across this video. So, I decided to search Google Wave in, what else, Google. I came across the website for the information on Google Wave, to which this video came up. (WARNING: It is nearly 90 minutes long.) Now there are some great features of this that I LOVE right off the bat, from what I've seen so far:

1) Instant Messaging. Now, when someone mentions instant messaging, you immediately think something like AIM or Yahoo! messenger. This is quite an advance. You get to see what the other person is typing as they are typing it. I don't think that was loud enough. You get to see what the other person is typing AS THEY ARE TYPING IT!!!! There, that's better. You know how in a normal real life conversation you can hear people say what they're saying without waiting for them to hit enter, send or done? This basically is the same thing, except with type, so that you can answer before you get the full question. Come to think of it, that brings it to a new level of internet douche-baggery, but, so far, it's only for people whom you chose to be a douche bag to. Speaking of,

2) Multiple users. Now, this is nothing new, which you can tell for those of you who use Gmail. You get conversations, and it tells you how many people are involved. The problem with this is that you either have to have everyone on board in the beginning, or you have to forward the entire conversation to that person to get them on board. No longer. You can just drag a person into a Wave, and they can hit Playback, saving you the 30 seconds to bring them back into the conversation.

3) Embedding. So, you've got your Wave set up. Sweet. You can show more than your 3 best friends, who are all in the Wave, that you just called Jose Canseco a juiced up bastard that doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame (which is so true, by the way). Fear not. You can embed the Wave into a website, even a blog. This makes it pretty sweet to have a private conversation that 6 billion people can read.

4) Editing. So, let's go back here. Editing? That's right. If you were drunk, and you "accidentally" cursed out your spouse on a Wave that everyone is on, you can go back and delete it so that nobody can read it. Better yet, just change it so that you can talk about how much you love them. Can't get any better? What if someone just said "Hey Dan. You're a giant tool!" Well, you can go back and edit it to say "Hey Dan. You have a giant tool!" The only drawback to that is it will show you whoever wrote or edited that point, so if someone wanted to press playback, they'd see that you changed it, killing your already minimal credibility.

5) Documents. Remember those old days when you were in college 3 years ago, and you needed to type a paper for a group paper, but everyone's schedule sucked, so you were in the library until midnight the night before it's due trying to get it done? Well, you can still do that, for those of you that are glutton's for punishment. However, if you just want to be able to write the paper, and not actually have any human contact, you can all write the paper together in Wave. You can all write your part of the paper, and never have to get together to put it all together. No risk of program clashing.

It was at this point, I decided that I was done watching the video (about 38 minutes in). I like what I saw, and I have signed up to use it, however that doesn't guarantee I will until the actual launch of the non-Beta.

However, a quick hop over to the Wikipedia page set up for Wave, and you get this:

Google wave Extensions are mainly of 2 types:

• Gadgets : A gadget is an application users can participate with, many of which are built on Google’s OpenSocial platform. A good comparison would be iGoogle gadgets or Facebook applications.

• Robots : Robots are automated participants within a wave. They can talk with users and interact with waves. They can provide information from outside sources (i.e. Twitter, stock quotes, etc.). The latest version of robots API is 2.0.

If you didn't read the section about Robots, read it again. This is the beginning of robots being self-aware and taking over the world. HAS NO ONE HEADED THE WARNINGS THAT HAVE BEEN PUT TO THE CONSUMER SINCE TERMINATOR CAME OUT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

That being said, I'm jumping off here before one comes through my front door and kills me in my sleep.

C.D.