Google 'Wave' is the future of email

Google has encouraged software developers to ride into the future of email with a project called "Wave" which opens inboxes to text, video, pictures, maps and even social network feeds.

"Wave" expands the capabilities of email to let people communicate and work together in real-time with text, photos, videos, maps, and more, according to Google software engineering manager Lars Rasmussen.

"In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it," Rasmussen wrote in a blog post at the California Internet giant's website yesterday.

"Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. You see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave."

A "wave" prototype built by a five-person team "holed up in a conference room in the Sydney office" for months was previewed at a Google developers conference in San Francisco on Thursday, according to Rasmussen.

A Wave software kit was provided to developers at the conference. Waves allow for collaboration and communication by letting people send out pictures, messages, or videos that can be built on or modified as they stream from recipient to recipient.