Is Google's Wave Released to Compete with Yahoo!'s Facebook?

Google is releasing "Google Wave" that is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration which is in some aspect similar to Yahoo!'s Facebook that now is ranked as the second biggest website by Alexa after Google in terms of number of visitors.

Google Wave is designed to be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

What is a wave?


Google in their Wave page explains that:

• A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
• A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
• A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Acoording to Kharif of Businessweek, Google is combining instant messaging, e-mail, and real-time collaboration in Wave which is an early form of so-called real-time communication designed to make it easier for people to work together or interact socially over the Internet. Google started letting developers tinker with Wave at midyear and then introduced the tool on a trial basis to about 100,000 invited users starting on Sept. 30. Invitations were such a hot commodity that they were being sold on eBay (EBAY). For Google the hope is that Wave, once it's more widely available, will replace competing communications services such as e-mail, instant messaging, and possibly even social networks such as Facebook.