Google launches a new era of communication - Google Wave: Sneak Peak(0)
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| posted on Oct 01 2009 |
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Google has just launched a realtime communication and collaboration platform called google wave which promises to revolutionise the way people communicatate. The stakes are really high here and this new invention might be the end of email, instant messaging and some social media communicatin tools.
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.
With the kind of functionality google wave promises, it would be easier and more effective for example, for five people in five different countries to work together on a project than five people in thesame room. Some of the innovative features that make google wave so unique are: realtime typing(you can see what someone else is typing immediately, character by character); Wiki functionality(anything written in google wave can be edited by someone else); Drag and drop file sharing; Rewind(an elaborate version of undo most computer applications); spelling autocorrection; easy interfacing with blogs, webpages and social networks.
Two of the most spectacular successes in digital communication, email and instant messaging, were originally designed in the '60s to imitate analog formats — email mimicked snail mail, and IM mimicked phone calls. Google wave on the other hand is modelled entirely on digital communication methods and opens up new possibilities in the digital world.
So Whats the implication of this new invention on Nigeria and Africa as a whole
As this new protocol marks the begininng of a new era in communication, new challenges for internet service providers are offered. Wave represents a dramatic shift in communications from software to web. This makes more than ever, the adoption of the web lifestyle necessary. Also more people would use their phones less and look more to the web even though a lot of those might be through mobile devices. We might be seeing a lot of web startups spring up very soon and competing fiercely with established companies, moreso with the challenges that the economic crunch poses. The Nigerian telecoms industry thus have to brace up for this new development and see how they can align with the true ethos of internet communication. Similarly, it would be less important for organisations to have physical offices and spaces, thus more virtual teams would spring up, providing a highly cost effective way of doing business with increased efficiency, compared to the physical counterparts.
We might also see a drastic reduction in corruption in Nigeria and Africa as the ease for sharing information would be unbelievable. It would be very difficult to hide anything under the carpet and it can only get better once we solve our power and bandwidth issues. Lets keep our fingers crossed. |
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