We got a great response to last week's frequently asked questions about Google Wave, and decided it's worth expanding further on the differences between Wave and the current crop of web-based collaboration offerings.


Frequently Asked Questions About Google Wave The Google Wave Preview has been available to one million+ people for over three months now, but… Read more

Wave combines features from email, instant messenger, Google Docs, wikis, and forums and throws its own spin on things. For a quick visual of its offerings versus similar tools, check out this feature-by-feature comparison table.


(Click the image below for a closer look.)

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You'll notice that Wave doesn't have a green yes in every cell in its column; it's still missing functionality that's holding it back from being a viable alternative in a production environment—specifically, user permissions (everyone can edit everything) and the ability to export a wave or publish it so that anyone can see its contents (not just folks logged into Wave).

This table is slated to go into chapter 1 of the first edition of The Complete Guide to Google Wave, so give me a shout if you've got ideas for how to polish it up before we rev up the printers.


We've updated the chart to reflect Google Docs' revision control features, previously mislabeled as a "No".

Google Wave Versus the Rest, Feature by Feature [Smarterware]

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