If you haven't already checked out the presentation on Google Wave (below), I would recommend pulling up a chair and sitting through the 1 hour 20 minute video to get a glimpse of the future.

Google Wave foreshadows what I would refer to as "composite applications". Except Wave takes the concept of building dynamic threads (called "waves") to a whole new level with support for federation, async/real-time communication, desktop integration (via Google Gears), and a 3rd party plug-in API.

What strikes me in watching this video is how similar Wave's underlying architecture is to our own community graph. Our XOS API takes a very similar approach to generically defining objects and supporting hierarchical compositions.

It's unclear to me how Wave's open source distribution strategy will play out. The model appears to be quite similar to what I was hoping Microsoft would do with their cloud strategy, which is to enable partners to build out and host datacenters that are federated through a common platform.

Google seems to understand that making Wave a replacement for all the pre-Internet protocols (SMTP, POP, FTP) will require ubiquitous adoption of a technology that is not owned by any one corporation.

There's a waiting list to start playing with Wave, so go sign up here.