I’m finding how we’ll be working in a progressively networked future a fascinating topic. Online collaboration has always been difficult. Computing — a decidedly solitary activity — isn’t easily turned into a communal experience. But after watching this video I see a glimmer of a long-distance working community that’s truly more productive than one sitting in adjoining cubicles. It’s a preview of the open source Google Wave.

Google describes a wave as, “Equal parts conversation and document, where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.” Here’s the video:

This video is a full hour long, so let me help you with a couple pivotal features.

The developers who will be taking and running with this new system will be setting the limits for how we all work together in the next decade. Just as apropos to Online Community Month, they’ll be doing this development in a spirit of true collaboration: open source and forever free to be tweaked and refined.