Google Wave started out with a bang. An Internet giant like Google doesn’t need to market its product,
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Imagine being surrounded by a large crowd of developers, technology enthusiasts, journalists, and bloggers, all eagerly awaiting a surprise announcement by Google. That was the setting when Google Wave was first introduced to the world on May 28, 2009, during the second-day keynote of Google I/O, Google’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, California. That day both techies and nontechies alike were awed by the preview demonstration of Google Wave, a new platform aimed at transforming the way we communicate and collaborate on the Web.
As Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the originators of Google Maps and Google Wave, and Stephanie Hannon, Google Wave’s product manager, demonstrated some of Google Wave’s features and capabilities, it became clear that this new platform had the potential to revolutionize social and business interaction on the Web. Attendees at Google I/O may have been the first to witness the power and extensibility of Google Wave, but soon thereafter a broad audience around the world learned about this new platform as news of Google’s announcement quickly spread around the Web.
The People Behind Google Wave
Google Wave was initially conceived by Lars and Jens Rasmussen (see Figure 1-1), a dynamite brother duo responsible for the initial development of Google Maps. The similarities between the origins, and subsequent success, of Google Maps and Google Wave are no coincidence. The Rasmussen brothers have proven that they have a good balance of innovative spirit and vision to transform web technologies into platforms and products that have high value and appeal for a broad user base.
Back in 2004, while working on Google Maps, the Rasmussen brothers conceived the idea for Google Wave after asking a simple yet valuable question: “What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?”
After working on Google Maps for several more years, the brothers turned their attention to their next project in 2007. That year a small team comprised of Lars, Jens, and three other developers in Google’s Sydney, Australia, office began work on the initial prototype for Google Wave.