Google wave looks interesting. Google describes it as “a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web” and it’s a funny mix of email, instant messaging, wikis, and Facebook wall interactions. Or maybe IRC for the new century. This is from a post, Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave, on the Google blog.

“A “wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”

Google Wave is not available yet, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s launched.

Here’s a random thought. Our models for communication in multiagent systems (e.g., KQML and FIPA) were informed by if not based on email and, to a lesser degree, IM. If Wave is a useful new communication model for humans, does it have a counterpart for software agents? If so, I suspect that ideas from the Semantic Web will be useful to provide a “rich content” for agents.

For more views, see posts by o’reilly, techcrunch, BusinessWeek and Gabor Cselle.

Jim Odell, the acting chair of the FIPA IEEE Computer Society standards committee, recently sent out an update to the members on current activities.

“FIPA is currently working with the OMG on agent standardization, including an SOA standard that includes agents (SOA-Pro) and an Agent Metamodel and Profile (AMP). The Agent Metamodel and Profile RFP has many companies that are participating, including (but not limited to): HP, Unisys, CSC, Deere & Co, Thales, Metropolitan Life, SINTEF, and DFKI. If you are interested in participating, please let me know.

Any comments on the Agent Metamodel and Profile (AMP) RFP are welcomed. (The above companies and RMIT have already submitted their suggestions. The current release can be downloaded from: http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?ad/2008-06-02”

The OMG Agent Platform Special Interest Group page maintains links to documents about these emerging agent standards.