Wave is Google’s newest web based open-source collaboration tool set to launch later in the year. The recent developer preview event held in the States aimed to encourage developers to build tools for Wave to make it more useful and integrated for its future users much like with iphone applications.

Wave is based on a tree structure of communication which focuses around ‘hosted conversations’ the design of which is focused around real conversation patterns and speed of use. It integrates email and instant messaging all into the same message thread.

To make efficiencies, key strokes are streamed live in instant messaging to cut down on time you have to sit and watch the ‘katie is typing’ message like with other instant messenger services. This service even allows you to ‘drag and drop’ files into the conversation straight from your desktop rather than uploading attachments.

Other wave users can even see thumbnails of the files dropped into the conversation before they are fully uploaded.

My favourite bit is that you can add ‘robot’ users such as your blog to your wave. Adding the blog ‘robot’ to the conversation thread and anything which is said or done there is then uploaded to the blog itself. Any edits done within this thread will also be updated on the blog and non- wave users comments on the blog site updated to the wave thread. This could be great for collaborative blogging and conversations online.

Check out the full product video (it’s quite long) here.