Google Wave inbox. (Google)

"Wave" goodbye to e-mail: Google just announced the new way we will all be communicating in five years' time.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Google Wave. It's a brand new paradigm in the ever-shifting world of information technology that will increase proactive synergy. Soon, we won't be e-mailing or tweeting or chatting, we will just be "waving." If you run a business, you might as well throw out all your productivity software, because you're not going to need it anymore.

In case you haven't seen the 2 hour introductory video yet (and you should definitely watch it when you get a chance because it is as historic as the moon landing), here's what you need to know: Google Wave is an all-new communication protocol that allows you to send and collaborate "waves" with fellow waveusers. Your interactions are saved to the wavecloud and accessed through the wave interface, which allows wavers to create a series of wavescapes your wavefriends can interact and wave with. It integrates the disparate online communication methods together into one place. And, it has a robust API you can insert into websites and cellphones.

Some of the stuff they were talking about was so complex that even I, a seasoned technology reporter, was lost at times.

It is an e-mail client. It is a social network. It is a chatroom. It is a virtual office. It is an arcade. It is a wiki. Google Wave is all of those things, and so much more. It is the future.