Massucci's Take: Google Wave is email for the next generation

There is a lot of buzz these days over a new product called Google (GOOG) Wave. Some are under the false impression that it's the next Twitter, but this new tool from Google is very different. Think of it as a real-time collaboration tool that includes, among its many features, email on steroids.

Greg Dalesandre, Google Wave product manager, in an online video, describes Wave as a "shared space," where users can communicate using text, videos, photos and maps. So you can have a conversation while working on a document with a group of people in another city -- or in another part of the planet. You can both work together in real time using richly formatted text, photos, videos and more. The wave is the shared experience that you are involved with. So you could be working with 10 people and everything you do -- from the conversations you have to the changes you make to a document, will be inside a wave. What's really cool about this is that the wave allows you to rewind, allowing you to see who said what when. Since everything is in real-time -- it's fast.