Hi, just to keep everyone in sync, I am working on a script for a video that might key funding for coders, etc., which can be refined into much more succinct materials in a compelling slide deck, etc. This is being edited and developed via Rizzoma for now. Current draft follows.
All the best, John Blossom Today's Web is changing like it never has before. More than a billion people use it today and a billion more will be using it in just a few years - mostly on mobile devices. Those Web users will live in a world that is being transformed by the mobile Web. Trillions of sensors that generate Web data and machines that use Web data are everywhere, creating a Web of everything connected to everyone. New devices and services merge the world that we live in with the world of Web information in new and powerful ways. How do we organize and manage our communications with both people and machines to build up knowledge together that leads to successful actions in such a fast-changing world? That's what Wave does - by helping people to communicate in ways designed specifically for a world that lives in the Web. Wave software merges Web conversations, information and apps into evolving, dynamic Web documents that get people sharing, creating and acting on complex information streams more easily and more rapidly than ever before. Instead of having dozens of apps or Web sites for dozens of different kinds of documents, Wave enables you to organize all of your communications and information around a specific topic, relationship or other focus into a single document that many people and apps can use and update. Wave documents are modeled on the way people speak and share ideas - little bits of information gathered over time, sometimes put together by many people working intensely on exactly the same thing at the same time. Wave works like the real world works - it reflects the exploring nature of how we discover and understand today's world together. You don't have to send people Wave documents - you bring people into them, just like you'd add a person to a conversation. Apps can contribute to Wave documents, too - machines and online services can be part of the conversation in Wave. Wave documents are designed to evolve easily and flexibly over time, with a structure that can easily transform conversations into insights into actions. Different apps can use all or just portions of Wave documents, or organize them in any way you'd like. Instead of having to use specific software for specific types of information, Wave documents can help you to use any software that helps them to become more valuable - allowing you to eliminate the need for many other kinds of software, documents and communications services. Many types of services try to do what Wave does, but none try to work the way that the world really works today. Take email, for example. When we respond to someone in a conversation, do we repeat everything that someone said in that conversation before saying something new? Does the next person do the same thing, repeating all of their names, and so on? And yet that's exactly what happens in emails all the time. In Wave, you only need to communicate something once in exactly the right spot, and everyone who's involved in that topic will see what's new - without repeating anything. They can watch Wave documents being changed before their very eyes as people and apps add new information - and they can even see one another adding things as they type or add people and apps to a Wave document. But even better, you can use another completely different app for the same Wave document and get a completely different view of its information, making it easy for people with different kinds of focus to see and add to the information that's most important to them. Wave documents can power many different types of apps, and are not tied to any specific app for their structure or storage. This allows people to have more ownership of their data in Waves and more ability to shift from one app to another without having to deal with data format issues. Wave can work on any common mobile device, with or without an active Internet connection, enabling people to collect and analyze information in their own documents, share them with others on a person-to-person basis or add them into a global network of Wave services in which local and personal knowledge can feed valuable services and transactions. Wave started as a demonstration project sponsored by Google in 2008. In 2009, Google gave the software from that demonstration project to the Apache Software Foundation, which enabled several new Apache Wave-derived products to come to market. Wave has been used successfully in enterprises, media, medicine, education, law enforcement, startups and many situations where highly efficient and flexible information sharing is key to rapid problem solving and clear communications in complex situations. Today Wave is preparing for a new generation of users by focusing on becoming a much more powerful platform for mobile communications. The original software is being re-engineered for better performance, more easy sharing of information between organizations using Wave technologies, simpler and more rapid development of specialized user interfaces and very flexible use on mobile devices. To ensure the ongoing success of Wave, the Wave Development Foundation has been established to fund and support these expanded initiatives so that Wave can accelerate the use of Wave for a new generation of Web apps just as Web apps are becoming extremely capable. The world needs Wave right now - and we can't wait to give the world an even better Wave to help them.
