Google Waves goodbye to Email…

You can read the official release here…

http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

My take on it…
I think, –at least in the world of people who already live and die via google– that we’re about to see a major shift in the way people collaborate and work online in groups.

I already exist in a number of online “communities”, some are more real time then others (chat, vs forum posts), but all of them are obviously “version 1″ of what is possible with the web, and the internet as a whole.

I think with Google Wave we’re going to see a pretty large change in the concepts that people use when describing communication online.

We’re all used to email.
Some of us even use more advanced email systems such as GMail, Zimbra, Chandler and other email systems that try to strech the boundries of what Email is.

I’d venture that most of us also have some sort of Chat Program as well, AOL IM, GTalk, Yahoo, MSN… etc.

No matter how you cut it, they’re seperate things. Only GMail and GTalk have a degree of uniity in how they relate to each other.

Now merge your email, IM communication, and your other online community tools, such as message boards and blogging, RSS feeds (google reader interaction comes to mind), and you can start to form true online communities on the web that are truely real-time collaborative.

I’m really interested in seeing how the interaction of documents and files between different parties can work with this system as well.

Its a lot to wrap your head around, and I know I’m just starting to spend some time seriously thinking about it. Go read the links I put at the top, and enjoy!