Because Google has opened the source code for Wave to the public, outside
development will play a massive role in the growth of the offering into various industries.
(Creative Commons licensed)

You know how to use e-mail. You know how to use instant messaging. Google Wave takes the deceptively simple step of unifying the two technologies inside your Web browser, and in doing so is likely to change the way the world communicates and does business.

Wave, first introduced to developers in May 2009 to major nerd excitement, is different than what has come before because it is as much an open platform as it is a product. So, similar to the way iPhone apps make the iPhone do all kinds of things the phone doesn't out of the box, people can build all kinds of things on top of Wave.

To understand where we're heading, let's first look at the basics of what Wave has been designed to do:

Wave blows up the concept of e-mail as letter-writing. Instead, someone starts a conversation and participants jump in and out. It's all done in real time (even faster than IM).  Rather than sending e-mails back and forth, threaded conversations are held directly in the browser. Think Wikipedia meets Twitter on steroids.

Wave can go almost anywhere. Using Google's API, you can turn almost any Web site into a hub for a Wave conversation. Once you've established the connection, people on different sites can exchange information and collaborate on documents in real time.

Wave is powerful enough for really important work. You'd likely be hesitant to co-create an academic paper by e-mail. Or pass a blueprint back and forth. Or revise a legal document.  Wave allows you to grant different access to different users, tracks changes, and lets you "Play Back" an entire exchange or series of edits.    

Wave is a platform. You can upload videos, maps, and yes, software into Wave and have them live there. The whole shebang is hosted by Google, with nothing to install...but one exception: you'll need Google Gears for real-time media sharing. And of course, it works on your smartphone. 

Wave is open source. The really transformative part: if you're so inclined, you can access the source code of Wave itself, collaborating with other developers to build features and new applications. As with any open source community, the conversation and collaboration between developers will become the engine for innovation.

The new applications are where the real fun (and potentially, the money) begins. Google knew this, and that is why they opened up the platform from the very beginning to a select group of outside developers. They have only just opened to an additional 100,000 users. The race is on.

Already, enterprise vendors SAP and Salesforce.com have built programs for workplace collaboration that will run inside Wave. On the consumer side, companies like Lonely Planet and AccuWeather will help users plan trips. This is the very beginning, and soon we'll see collaborative editing of music and video, shared augmented reality programs, and the rise of a new methodology for producing the news, among other things.  

So far, Wave's greatest selling point is making it easier for people to work together efficiently without necessarily being in each other's presence.  This kind of virtualization of work has long been promised but Wave may just make it practical. That may be enough to empower human beings in a way that we cannot yet fully fathom.