Google introduced Wave saying that this new online collaboration tool “reinvents email”. But they have offered developers a lot more than that. The Wave architecture incorporates many innovations since email - especially live cooperative editing. So Google challenges us to reinvent our communication apps with these possibilities in mind.
Wave is a big topic so the talk is organized in three parts with time for discussion:
Wave - Product, Platform, and Protocol.
An overview of Wave emphasizing the Wave platform for extension development.
Wave architecture - Patterns for development.
Approaches for using Wave’s live synchronization layer with new and existing web applications.
Development of Wave robots in Java.
The API for building Wave robots that watch user activity and respond with edits. Robot services range from simple text substitution to interfaces to existing web services.
Rick Thomas, is an entrepreneur focused on the strategic design of cooperative work. His goal is “better language” from a fundamental perspective as well as in new media practice. In the 1980’s Mr. Thomas was a software engineer and manager on projects including avionics testing and manufacturing automation. His special interest in tools for project management led him to attend the ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) in 1986. In 1987 he was program chairman for the IEEE Conference on Engineering Management, which emphasized the CSCW theme. In the 1990’s Mr. Thomas applied these ideas by developing collaboration software for project and sales organizations, and later for interactive video language learning and other multimedia projects. In the 2000’s his work has been to explore the design possibilities at the intersection of three fields: 1) the natural history of language, its biology and its future, 2) applied language for management and decision making, and 3) modern media for language including internet culture, standards and applications. He is a Management Advisor to Evenview, which develops and places creative teams, and has developed a course in Managerial Decision Making at the College of Business at Georgia State University. He is active in the Atlanta technical community where he presents on Google Wave as a platform for innovation. Education: MSEE 1976, BSEE 1975, Georgia Institute of Technology. MBA 1979, Georgia State University.
