Google Wave Federation: Why it Matters
According to The Next Web, the Google Wave team is getting ready to open up its servers for federation. This announcement may come as early as today.
The Google Wave we see today is only one part of what Wave is all about. Wave is also an open protocol that allows different Wave providers to run their own Wave servers. These are not just stand-alone Wave servers for internal use in a company, however. This protocol gives Wave providers the ability to exchange messages between different servers that are running Wave-based services, just like different email providers can pass emails back and forth thanks to standardized email protocols.
Update: A Google spokesperson just told us that the company will have more news about the launch of the Wave federation program early next week - not today.
What The Google Wave Federation Looks Like
The Wave team likes to compare Wave to email - and just like email, Wave users will be able to exchange messages and share waves with Wave users on different servers. Right now, Google is the only Wave provider on the market. This will soon change. Wave providers will be able to use the Wave federation protocol to share updates and users only have to know the other users' wave address. A wave address looks just like an email address: <username>@<domain>.
To reach its potential as a ubiquitous new means for real-time communication, Wave has to be open and available to as many users as possible. If Wave only existed in Google's silo, it wouldn't be very interesting.
If you are interested in the technical background, Google offers a very readable White Paper about the Google Wave federation architecture.
What Does This Mean for Users?
Because it's a federated protocol, you could soon run your own Wave server. No pre-packaged distributions that would allow a user or company to set up a Wave server exist at this point, but it's only a matter of time before these will arrive. Hopefully, some of these will also experiment with alternative user interfaces that will extend the functionality of Wave beyond Google's current implementation.
Companies will be able to host their own Wave servers and use them to communicate internally or with clients who run their own Wave servers. Many enterprise companies are still worried about storing their data in a hosted environment. If Google wants to make Wave palatable for this market, these companies need to have the ability to control their data and customize the experience for their employees.
For our thoughts about Google Wave use cases, also see our posts about Wave in education and arts and filmmaking.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Would like a Google Wave. Anyone have any to share? Thank you!!!
I see big similarities between Wave's Federation Stategy and yesterday's Facebook Graph announcement (FB promising to open the platform to 3rd party devs, potentially servers) and believe FB may have been attempting to pre-empt developers from jumping over to the more open Wave platform. Though Wave is still in its infancy, Zuckerberg and Co. must be aware of the potential conflict down the road.
Having been on a team that developed a real-time Wave-based quiz game for 2-100+ users at a GTUG campout this summer, I see the Wave platform as an enabler for coordinated gaming, PMOGs, etc that can replace FB Apps instream, on other sites in discrete windows, and mix the two instantly. That, and the prospect of developers moving to this platform in lieu of FB’s walled garden, are two good reasons for Facebook to counter Open Wave by reassuring developers that, yes, you will be able to
build atop our platform yet keep your apps separate and gain access to FB user emails should they opt in.
Thoughts?
http://socialnode.blogspot.com/2009/10/is-facebook-graph-counter-to-google.html
Christina, I have an invitation, but I need your address. Just in case my email address is p dot sperling at "you know the Google mail domain".
google wave will fail like orkut, blogger and many of its services that nobody asked for and nobody really uses
While a very interesting concept, I'm a bit skeptical. It's nice that Google can afford to take such a gamble.
I usually work with web-based applications like http://www.showdocument.com
I use it for sharing my designs and documents with partners and clients,
but i guess it can used for other purposes too. If you're looking for a free solution you should check it out.
- Laura W.
Any spare invitations? I'm really curious about Wave for quite some time.
Also do we have API access if we get an invitation or do we need another one for the API?
My mail is:
serdarsoy (at) (gmail) (dot) (com)
Tried Gwave, it's ok. Haven't seen the full potential of though..
Can anyone share a wave invite please?
Thanks
samsbox at google mail
It would be possible to make an even more open and general network, by developing a protocol for user authentication to remote servers and update notifications, instead of a protocol for sharing conversations. Fixing a protocol for exchanging conversation requires to first fix a universal standard for the format of conversations, while a protocol for user authentication would open the way to an illimited field of conversation types and any other interactive systems competing together, that can be developed by independent servers. See details and many more ideas here: http://spoirier.lautre.net/beyond-google-wave