Application Development Company

When I went to JavaOne this year, I had some friends who went to the Google I/O conference a few days before. Besides getting a new G2 phone (lucky), they were raving about Google Wave. Google recently released Wave into beta, and I have had a chance to play with it.
For those who do not know, Google Wave is a new type of communication software that allows real time collaboration. I know, it sounds all buzzwordy, but it is real cool. Think of Wave as email, SMS, and a working SharePoint all in one. To start a Wave you select new and a text area displays. Select from your contacts to add people, write some text and press send. Sounds like email right? Well, what if after some correspondence, you need to bring other people into the loop? And those late comers are now asking new questions? I don't know about you, but I get confused trying to read emails with lot's of history, and getting new emails based off of some of that history. Google Wave fixes this because everyone is updating a single thread in real time. If you are added late, there is a play button to show the order of the messages. Since it is in real time, all response are shown when entered. You could follow a meeting while listening to a conference call, and ask questions during the meeting, instead of having a second meeting to discuss the first meeting.
Collaboration is the key aspect of Wave. I am using Wave to let some people in Brazil help me test my JavaFX application. As a Cincinnati based application development person, this already saves me time and money. I added a zip file, and instructions on how to use it. I can get their feedback, and update the zip file. I think all application development people can see how useful this is. I can update my code to my users, and have a history of feedback. This will work well for those “confused” management types who “forgot” their feedback.

Google Wave is also a development platform. You can create your own widgets to run on Google Wave. The widgets provided by Google are a poll widget, collaborative Sudoku, and emoticons. I have used the poll widget, and works nicely. If you have a yes/no/maybe question to ask, it really is useful. I have an idea of using TTS to create “talking” Waves.

The one thing I would like to point out is that you will be able to run the Google Wave engine on your boxes. That means you can have a “private” Wave and a “public” Wave. You can set access restrictions on Wave, so you can have control of who uses Wave. Now that it is in beta, look for an invite and get riding!