Wave!

Around the same time last year, I found myself watching a 120 minute video on Youtube (no, I don't actually expect you to watch it, though here's a ten minute summary if you're interested), featuring the official announcement and an early demonstration of Google Wave. By June, I had mentioned (or was raving about...) Google Wave and its potential applications to most of the people around me. When I discovered that Google had opened up a sign up list for Wave invites, I immediately registered my google account and began counting down the days till Sept 30, the preview for Google Wave.

But what is Google Wave? Here's a short 100 word precis:

"Google Wave has several of the capabilities of email and chat, but designed as if these communication methods were invented today. The potential is limitless. Wave offers live time chat, where one can see what the other is typing, letter by letter. It allows for collaborative edits, where multiple users can change the text simultaneously, and seewhat each other is typing by the keystroke. Furthermore, files and videos can be attached by a simple "drag and drop" from your folders or through a built-in Google search. Eventually Wave will be integrated into features such as Blogger and Docs. Yay."


Well, it turns out that I was not one of the first 100 000 people who signed up for wave =(. So I did not receive an invite. But patience is a virtue, and I decided to wait (no thanks to buying invites on Ebay =P). And so Wave began to slip my mind, until

On November 14 of last year, courtesy of Nilay, friend of Joey, I was [finally] invited to Wave. I think I owe one of them a drink. But anyways, here's my thought process for my first time on Wave.

Logging in: Yes! Finally I have Wave! The possibilities are endless - what should I do first?
10 seconds later: ... waiting, waiting, why is this taking so long? =/
20 seconds later: page is fully loaded - but then takes a while to load my first wave (to see a video of Dr. Wave)
About a minute in: I see Nilay online and strike a conversation. However, by this time, I was more or less disappointed in the Wave team (which is led by Lars Rasmussen, also creator of Google Maps - awesome guy!) - as this version of Wave was much buggier and laggy. Furthermore, the really cool tricks, including Rosie were still unavailable.

But I wasn't outright disappointed. There was some learning curve - the idea of waves and blips can be a little novel, and even the scrolling system was remodeled, but once you get the hang of it, there's really quite a bit you can do. Early conversations were often hit or miss. Not many people had Wave yet (December-ish), and some people gave Wave up as it was just easier to talk on msn. But a few conversations worked really well - a debate allowed all members to evaluate what had been written, and the real-time collaboration allowed for a more engaging argument. Photos were much easier to share than email or msn as I could share to a group via drag and drop. And as time went on and the Google team continued to work on the Wave preview, the program became more and more easier to use.

Here's a video that Wave released just at the end of 2009.

It took me about two minutes to open Youtube, find the video, configure the embed code, and copy/paste it into blogger. If I was one Wave, I would've been able to embed this in 15 seconds.

January came along, and so did the Artsci Grant Proposal (Yay Green Roots!). I was quick to suggest using Wave, at least for the brainstorming and research process, partially seeing its potential, but also to regain some of that Wave hype that had died off during the Christmas break. Wave still wasn't a game-changer, and our proposal still used Google Docs and Email for communication, but Wave proved itself as a very useful tool to group work. And day by day, features were still being implemented.

After February, my disappointment in Wave had long faded, as functionality proved to get better. Though disappearing off the radar for another few months, Google announced last week that Wave was to leave its "preview mode", and open up to the public. So yes, you can now open a Wave account!

Anyways, if you have any questions about Google Wave, feel free to ask me. My Wave account is ay.savethetigers@googlewave.com. Oh, and remember how the precis mentioned that waves could be integrated into blogs? Well, it's right here:

Note, as it is a public wave, so anyone can come and edit it. Which explains all the people I don't know who have contributed to my post. Some have even begun a conversation, but I have deleted it. Anyways, I want to keep it clean, but feel free to write anything! Instructions in the Wave. Also, there's a piano! And the beauty of real time collaboration, if we (or anyone else) happens to be online at the same time, you can play a duet!


Oh... and to follow my theme...
If I worked for Google... I would've been payed for writing this. Sigh.