McNitt — Web strategy, social networking, standards-based development, accessibility, dancing, running, buddhism, other bits of fun

If you missed the Google I/O conference last week, here is the video of Google’s largest announcement, Google Wave, which in short aims to replace the 40 year old email standard and become a new open standard for electronic communication and real-time collaboration. It’s a whole new way of thinking about online communication and there are a number of components to the system so if you work in tech it’s worth watching the video from beginning to end. Google Wave is a major power play by Google, and the biggest question is how Microsoft will embrace or deflect HTML5 in it’s browsers, a requirement for Wave, and the new Wave protocol itself.

As a side note, I was hoping Google would talk about how the new Wave system potentially ends the largest current issue with email — SPAM. It’s implied by the architecture of the system but I’m not sure everyone will grasp this and in my mind is a huge selling point for any protocol, as least in-part, aiming to replace email.