Two weeks ago I wrote about a newly-announced product from Google, called "Google Wave." In that article, I wrote, "The Wave may offer tremendous potential for genealogy projects, especially for group efforts when multiple people are working towards a common goal."
The Google announcement at that time sounded great but gave very few details about the inner workings of Wave. Now Stephen O'Grady has spent some time evaluating Google Wave and has published his thoughts. The article is not specific to genealogy although I suspect that any experienced genealogist can read O'Grady's article and then envision future projects.
I was especially intrigued by O'Grady's new definition of a document. For most of us raised before the age of computers, a document is something recorded on paper and is static. It was written once and never changes, although others may create new documents on different pieces of paper that offer addenda and changes to the original. In today's world, O'Grady suggests that documents are dynamic, ever-changing collections of words that can be constantly updated and changed. If you keep that concept in mind, O'Grady's description of Google Wave starts to make sense.
As O'Grady writes, "The days of static documentation are drawing to a close, thanks to innovation - finally - in an area that should have seen it years ago."
You can read the entire article at http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2009/06/17/google-wave.
