Google Wave to Open its Own App Store and Itself to Software Developers

Posted 10/27/2009 at 11:24am | by Bart Salisbury

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Word has filtered out of the Google Wave Google Technology User Group’s London meeting that Google Wave will be opening an app store. The move, according to Zee over at The Next Web, signals Google’s commitment to this new technology, and provides encouragement for developers to expand Google Wave’s potential.

Google Wave is a real-time collaborative tool that permits groups to interactively ‘converse’ on a project, using richly formatted text, photos, videos and maps. Real-time here is taken to the extreme, with key-stokes shared among participants as they occur--no waiting for the press of a return key to send your thoughts along. The use of what Google calls “concurrency control technology” allows all participants in a wave to edit rich media at the same time.

Third-party developers have already come up with apps for teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and multiplayer gaming. The creation of an app store, similar to what Apple has done for iPhone apps, would provide additional incentive to developers to produce new, innovative add-ons for the Wave environment.

Other news from the London meeting includes Google’s plans to have an extension gallery up and running in a few months; ‘hooks’ which invoke actions, such as opening a new wave or launching a shortcut; merging waves; and deployment on networks and intranets for internal use by businesses. Google Mail, however, doesn’t appear headed for integration.

Image Credit: Google