Summary
Google's Wave technology launched at Google I/O recently shows a lot of possibilities and many interesting and very impressive features - but is the world waiting for another Facebook?
Analysis
The overview of features of Google's Wave as presented at Google I/O is truly impressive - character-for-character transmission, the ability to integrate pictures, maps, emails, instant messaging, games,... As it will be open-source it also presents a broad platform for a wide developer community to further develop interesting applications.
The question that arises is if the world is waiting for yet another Facebook? Will everyone migrate en-masse to Google's new platform? This may very well happen. It has most of the functionality of the Facebook platform but takes it a step further. Will it also be able to recreate the community feel of Facebook? This is doubtable as it would take a while to develop. Will Wave be too feature-rich and complex for its own good? This also could be its main barrier - the complexity may scare off less technology capable users. Instead of creating a whole new community the ideal way forward would be if pieces of the technology are integrated into the Facebook platform as well as other collaborative platforms.
