Catch the Google Wave | Path Interactive

The New Email is Here

Well, not quite yet, but last week Google did invite up to 100,000 users to a beta application called Google Wave. The previous smaller amount of invitations went mostly to developers in two other waves (pun intended). Google Wave has been creating a buzz in the tech, social media, and blogging communities ever since the I/O developer conference in San Francisco back in May. Trying to capitalize on the attention, some who were fortunate enough to get invitations, were attempting to sell their Google Wave invites on Ebay!

Why all the attention?

This isn’t just another application, the preview of the tool shows how transforming it can be. According to co creator Lars Rasmussen, It’s “what email would look like if it were created today”. If Lars sounds familiar, it’s because he along with his brother Jens, co created Google Maps, which actually delayed the concept of the Wave. This communication tool marries email and instant messaging with some rich functionality added onto it. Although, there is only a preview available, some of the sleekest features include…

The ability to see real time typing from your user’s keystrokes, character for character. No more staring at a small box saying that your party “is typing”. You can turn this feature off.
Add other contacts, via a drag and drop fashion into a conversation. If they are not immediately available, they can pick up on the conversation when they are connected.
If a contact is added into a conversation in the middle of it, they can go to a play back feature, which will go back and look at the history of the conversation before they were invited. As a result, they can pick up on the context of the conversation with out having to play catch up verbally or via an independent request.
Editing document/s on the same screen with multiple users on different computers at the same time.
Open source platform, allowing developers to provide additional functionality.

Users will dictate the success and usage of the tool. Will it be limited to a enterprise solution?, or will it disrupt mediums like facebook or twitter in the social community.

Have you received an invite from Google Wave? If so, how is your experience thus far?

Either way, the wave is about to hit us.

- @rubenq

http://netsperience.org decibel.places

Google has some great apps – Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, Google Charts, Feedburner, YouTube – so I would expect Wave to be fun and interesting.

I am also waiting for an invite to be acknowledged.

Meanwhile, I have been pretty successful integrating SMO in Drupal with twitter, Facebook Connect, Gigya socialize, ShareThis, RSS/Feedburner email updates etc. All these elements are in play at Faith the Dog.

Links:
http://www.gigya.com/public/Content/GS/Home.aspx
http://faiththedog.info
http://www.googlewaveinfo.com/ Mickey

I’ve been using it for several months now (on the dev version, now on the “real” one). It probably won’t be as big as the buzz around it, but it’s still going to be quite useful. I’m already using it with my designer to collaborate on ideas, and it’s superb for that. Over time, I think the usefulness of it will continue to grow.

Mickey
http://www.googlewaveinfo.com/
http://twitter.com/mickmel
http://www.vinznet.com Vinci

I really don’t think Google Wave is worth the buzz that its creating.. but I feel the apps that people would build using its API would be what makes Google Wave worth it. just like like what the apps did for Firefox, FaceBook, and the iPhone.
rakesh patel

I’ve got it, i’m playing around with it, there’s not a lot you can actually do until other friends / colleagues you actually know start using it as well. If you’ve actually watched the demo video on youtube ( all 90 minutes or so) you’ll realise that this has the potential to change the way we all communicate with each other and collaborate.

In all honestly at the moment, it’s still in beta ( and not like the betas of gmail etc) there’s still a lot to be done.. especially with 3rd party apps.

I can see why google, got the buzz out about this early to get 3rd party developers on board so its eventual gold release would have a lof of functionality straight off the bat, but right now its not going to replace my ordinary email, ( mainly because no one else can wave me unless the’re a contact, have access to wave and a gmail account)

I’d rather have the opportunity to use a google voice account to be honest ( still not available in the uk!)