Google Wave vs. Cc:Betty: Group communication & collaboration

If you’ve been keeping track of innovative products on the web than you probably saw the pre-launch of Google Wave last week at the Google I/O conference. If you didn’t see the demo take a look because it’s slick.

If you don’t have time for the demo (it's over 1+hours) let me wrap up Google Wave in a nutshell (explained by Google):

• 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. 

Here is a Wave in action:

Cc:Betty's 'Mailspace' concept is like a Wave
One drawback to this innovation is that Google Wave won’t be launched for the next year. But, you don’t have to wait if you’re looking for a better way to communicate and collaborate with groups. Instead, you’ll want to look at Cc:Betty which is available today. Here is the demo.
Watch for the similarities between Google Wave and Cc:Betty.

In a nutshell, Cc:Betty’s ‘Mailspace’ concept focuses on many of the same use cases as Google Wave. They both are focused on the fact that email hasn’t innovated to accommodate group interactions. Here is a Mailspace in action:

What’s surprising to me is that these solutions haven’t come along earlier. Regardless, both of these projects are ambitious. But if they weren’t, what would be the point;)