[p2p-research] Google's wave ends email?

[Nathan Cravens]

This buzz arrived just as I've pieced together a pretty clear general view
on how we might go about creating an entirely post-scarcity environment.
What timing! Wave is the sort of hyperaggregator that can adapt to what I
have in mind--in part expressed below. 'Wave' is a useful term to describe
"collaberative design" in one word--fab.

Conversations are easier to track in Wave. It is backwards compatible with
e-mail, so a conversation in a wave can remain sent as an e-mail. When it
becomes a better tool in practice, and folk continue to speak well of it, we
may be witnessing here the last of e-mail conversation.

What I'm most interest in is Wave's ability to port in user generated
programs, like software and hardware design ware, and view within the
wave--from birth to the very moment--who made changes to a design and how
the design changed over time. By viewing a design history, we might find
something worked better previously than existing. Photo sharing or
collaborative essay writing are simple examples, but I'm more interested in
seeing how this tool is used in collaborative infrastructure or systems
design itself.

An infrastructure map might begin with the layout of NYCResistor's
hackerspace graphically represented as a floorplan after a wave search for
"NYCResistor." This layout is itself a series of waves, one wave for
'MakerBot' another for the 'Lazor X', ect. The waves 'MakerBot' and 'X
Lazor' may be generated without knowing about NYCResistor at all, but
because NYCResistor uses these tools, the established waves describing the
MakerBot and X Lazor are more detailed and adopted with a special wave layer
for Resistor's particular tools. The devices then, based on user
preferences, communicate with the wave to report a tool's activity.
Something like that would aid Resistor's collaberation with our friends at
Skynet--I'm all for that.

This program will help encourage collaboration by enabling the place for any
variety of app useful to generating a collaberative design. It will
encourage competition for reputation by enabling users to observe design
progress. The aggregations of these apps into a single program means more
potential for the cross pollination mentioned in the NYCResistor example.

Ryan says:

> A cynic could say that corporations will always be untrustworthy and that
> the cheat will always wait until the most fateful moment.  An optimist would
> say that we are entering a new age of openness and sharing while still
> recognizing markets and innovation deserve financial recognition where
> desired.  The truth is probably somewhere inbetween.


This is a very smart move if we look at Google's stock price decline over
the past two years. What I see Wave affectively doing is managing Google's
risk by open sourcing the ware, making it a general enough app to add user
generated widgets, including Google's apps, so when the firm fails, the tool
remains usable under increasing post-scarcity conditions.

Google:
http://www93.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=google+

I see this program being used to locate a variety of previous discussions
here and on other lists formed into functional programs inspired by the
verbiage: like Michel's F/OS Fridge. ;)


Nathan
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