Announced by Google in May this year, Google Wave is a web application and computing platform designed to bring together email, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking. It was designed with a strong real-time collaboration focus in mind,and that mixed with real time spellchecker and translator  extensions makes it a next generation platform. But will the Wave leave us gasping for breath as we surf cyber-space better than before, or will it crash? We decided to take a closer look.

Google calls Wave a cross between conversation and document that allows users to do with one tool what they currently do with many  people discussing and working together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps , and more. It works in a web browser on the desktop or on mobile phones.

Writing a Wave is a lot like typing text to Gmail, Google Docs and blog posting . However, instead of a typical I-send-you-a-message-you-receive-it-and-reply type of exchange. Wave encapsulates conversations between people and shows real0time responses in line, more like threaded comments than individual massagers. For example, if you and I are in a conversation in Wave, you can watch me type out my responses, typos an all. To respond to my note, you will just click below the last message and extend the thread. This is taking the functionality of editing in groups on Google Docs one step further but, as anyone who has ever tried it, knows that this group-edit can be tricky.

The Wave, however, offers a nice UI and real-time edit updates to ensure that even a few people editing something in a wave don’t step all over each other. For example, when someone edits something in Wave, you will be able to watch their name outlined by a brightly-colored box next to the edits they are making in real-time. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos and Google maps. Other features you share in Wave include games, event invitations and more.

But Google, isn’t just thinking of Wave as another web application that you can use on one site-it wants you to be able to use it across all sites on the web. If, the example, you have a blog, then, as a post you could share a wave with public and allow others to see what you and the other people in your wave are doing. The visitors at your blog could even join in directly right from your blog and all the information would be placed right into the original wave. this functionality can be extended to any kind of site.

With such powerful integrated features, it’s no surprise that the Achilles heel of Google Wave is that it’s very, very noisy. New waves can pop into your inboxes from anywhere, anyone can anytime. So, while you may initiate one conversation, you could be dragged into another on that already has 60 entries and then Twave (Twitter entries) can follow suit just as you are getting accustomed. If you are a part of many active threads, even the playback button doesn’t help and the act of watching each one can be time consuming and an enormous task. Also, staying on top of all active waves can be a tremendous challenge. It’s like trying to juggle multiple chat windows. You cannot reply to everyone simultaneously.

Moreover, until Google Wave is integrated into Gmail other Google services, your Wave becomes another website where you will have to check your mail, so that you don’t miss conversations directed to you. So for someone like me, who has a personal email address, a work email address, a Gmail address, and email addresses for company clients, keeping track of Wave as well can be quite bothersome.

In Last Wave has the making of a killer application, but it will take time and patience to learn the technology and get the noise in control. Small tams can definitely use the Wave for real-time collaboration as its very nature offers an opportunity to further eliminate distance and improve information exchanges. But if you plan to use this new technology, expect to exert a lot of energy to stay on top of it, because messaging just got accelerated and, when at work, it will take incredible discipline to control the power of the Wave