Google Wave

[JesseK]

Google Wave is like the iPhone -- it's crap without all of the apps that are developed for it (the difference is that Wave will be the corollary to world domination whereas the iPhone is the corollary to socialism in the telecoms world...). I believe that after a substantial amount of community development, you will be able to visit web pages that are Wave portals and not even know it's Google Wave unless you know what Google Wave is.

For example, think about how AndyMark's website could be redone under a new Google Wave architecture. Andy could answer questions if he were online, and we could all post photos of the products in action. Additionally, we could post feedback on technical aspects and there could be a portal for requested features, parts, etc. We could even have a chat started during FRC build season in order to facilitate helping each other out -- that way Andy could focus on the larger picture yet the teams with questions still get a remarkable amount of customer service. Finally, to purchase the products, the Wave app would wrap the customer's shopping cart Wave into whatever existing format the current back end requires so that the payment system doesn't have to change.

There are other numerous advantages in online education, especially within the math and Physics world. Playing back a wave would allow us to see equations being manipulated on the fly, and if professors (or other FRC teams...) were online then a chat could be started at any point during the 'lesson' in order to ask questions about any individual piece of the equation or lecture that the student doesn't understand.

I think the biggest challenge is how to associate a website's current user database with a Google Wave user database without forcing users of the website to sign up for a Google account. (e.g. I'm JesseK on CD, but not JesseK@google)