Text is not Dead

Is Google Wave the next newest and most advanced internet communication tool? Is it the new Twitter or Facebook, or is it perhaps the new MySpace or Blue Ray disc. True, time may tell on that last one, but our modern culture is inundated with the newest device or internet tool on nearly a monthly basis. One can hardly keep up with Apple alone. Does the brand Google pave the way to success for such ventures?

Apparently, the birth of technology can lead to the death of another. Computers killed typewriters, cell phones killed land lines and long distance companies, and email killed the written letter. I once thought that email was like the internet itself; they each fed the other and were the key to each other’s survival. However, Jessica Vascellaro, writing for the Wall Street Journal, asserts that Twitter and Facebook have already begun to make email obsolete:

These new services also make communicating more frequent and informal—more like a blog comment or a throwaway aside, rather than a crafted email sent to one person. No need to spend time writing a long email to your half-dozen closest friends about how your vacation went. Now those friends, if they’re interested, can watch it unfold in real time online. Instead of sending a few emails a week to a handful of friends, you can send dozens of messages a day to hundreds of people who know you, or just barely do.

Not being entirely familiar with Wave, I consulted Google’s partner in crime, Wikipedia, for answers. Of course, answers were plenty:

Waves, described by Google as “equal parts conversation and document”, are hosted XML documents that allow seamless and low latency concurrent modifications.^[7] Any participant of a wave can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Users can reply to blips within waves. Recipients are notified of changes/replies in all waves they are active in and then view the changes when they subsequently access a given wave. In addition, waves are live. All replies/edits are seen real-time, letter by letter, as they are typed by the other collaborators. Multiple participants may edit a single wave simultaneously in Google Wave. Thus, waves not only can function as e-mail and threaded conversations but also as an instant messaging service, merging the functions of e-mail and instant messaging.

Trendy, a bit complicated, and fast are all traits that will probably feed this development’s success. If Wave becomes the new main attraction on the internet, what will happen to Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messaging, and Email. I begin to wonder just how big an empire Google will become. In an entity where power can belong to most everyone, I question whether Google owning so much of it is good for the internet and for the users.