Email is so 1971. Yep, email predates the internet, and is almost 40 years old. Today we have SMS, instant messaging, social networking sites, and lots of other methods of communication, many of which are better than email in various different ways.

Google Wave, launching later this year, is a new communication tool that looks a bit like email, but combines elements of SMS, IM, social networking, blogs, forums, wikis and more. Wave was developed by Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the creators of Google Maps. It looks a little like GMail and runs within your browser, but offers much more functionality.

The first thing you’ll notice about Wave is the live transmission, instantly transferring messages character by character as they are typed. Richly formatted text, photos, maps and the like can also be instantly shared. Photos can be dragged and dropped into messages, with thumbnails transferring instantly. Any participant can reply to any part of the conversation, edit messages, and add other participants. Conversations (or ‘waves’) become collborative, and can be played back step-by-step to show what was added or edited when and by who.

It looks great, but we’ll have to wait a few months to get our hands on it. In the meantime, you can take a look at the preview page and watch the keynote presentation.

Paul Technology Google Wave