On the same day that Microsoft unveiled its new Bing search engine (see upcoming post), Google has announced Google Wave, a new in-browser communication and collaboration tool that is set to change the way we work together online.

Delegates at the Google I/O Conference last week were treated to an introduction to Google’s new market-leading product/platform, due to be released later this year – just click on the screen below to watch it.

In brief, Google Wave is a real-time communication platform that combines aspects of email, instant messaging, online meetings, social networking, web chat, wikis, polls and project management in one in-browser communication system. Business colleagues or friends can come together to discuss topics or share information and files.

You can see more about Wave at About Google Wave or Mashable. Some of the key capabilities and extensions include:

  • Real-time: you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character.
  • Text, Photos, Maps, Polls and more: you can share all these and more.
  • Playback: You can playback any part of the wave to see what was said.
  • Embeddability: Waves can be embedded on any blog or website.
  • Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook or Twitter application, or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves – anything from bots to complex real-time games.
  • Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Wave can be edited by any other participant.
  • Simultaneous Translation: As well as an automated spell-checker (‘Spelly’), there is even a robot called ‘Rosie’ who can translate simultaneously between 40 languages!
  • Gadgets & Robots: Google’s Wave Gadgets Tutorial and Wave Robots Overview outline what is available and what could be developed.
  • Open source: The Google Wave code is open source, to encourage developers to produce new applications and extend functionality. Thus, for instance, you can combine Twitter ‘tweets’ into a ‘twave’, and so on.

I/O Delegates were given access to the beta version of Wave, to help Google develop both the platform and applications for it. Google has deliberately developed Wave as an Open Source application, so there are likely to be a myriad of new applications available by the time Wave formally launches – and over the following months!

So, all-in-all, within the year, Google Wave is likely to become a hugely powerful – and free – open-source collaboration platform with many, many applications and extensions.

Just watch the presentation above and let your mind imagine how on-line interaction and meetings are likely to evolve – and the host of extensions and applications that will be available very shortly – with Google Wave!

And just imagine the whole new ways you will be able to develop leads for your business and then interact with your prospects and customers…!

Join the Wave!