Google Wave

A new Wave of collaboration

This is a hybrid communication tool. It allows synchronic as well as asynchronic communication. Think of IM combined with e-mail features. If two people are online at the same wave at the same time, you can see live what the other people is typing, character-by-character. If you're not online, you can see new messages when you come back next time to the site. If you feel you missed a lot, but don't know exactly what, you can replay the sequence of interactions that took place in a certain wave


By GABRIELA ZAGO (gabriela.zago@wavemagazine.net)
from Pelotas, BRAZIL


Since September 30th, Google has started to release invitations for its newest product - Google Wave. The first 100,000 invitations were sent out to developers and Google Apps investors. Soon after, many regular users that have signed up to receive an invitation through Google Wave website since July have received their invitations by the first couple weeks of October.

According to tool developers, this first release is just a "preview". Google Wave will still receive some improvements before going public. However, the preview version is already very functional.

In order to access Google Wave, a user must have been invited by a friend who is already there. New users can invite around 20 new friends (8 right after registration, and 12 after a few days of use).

As Google Wave's page describes, "Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more." It's something between Google Docs and an e-mail Inbox.

By using bots and gadgets, a user can add different resources to a wave, such as maps, videos, and other multimedia. Most of the time, all is needed is to add a certain bot or link gadget to a wave, and it will do all the magic - such as what happens when public@a.gwave.com is added to a conversation: the wave becomes publicly available for all Google wavers to see. Playing the Sudoku gadget is also a fun call.

Personal communication and collaboration tool - for the future?

Wave is a hybrid communication tool. It allows synchronic as well as asynchronic communication. Think of IM combined with e-mail features. If two people are online at the same wave at the same time, you can see live what the other people is typing, character-by-character. If you're not online, you can see new messages when you come back next time to the site. If you feel you missed a lot, but don't know exactly what, you can replay the sequence of interactions that took place in a certain wave.

Wave is a collaboration tool. Just as in a wiki, you can post and edit texts, collaborating in a peer production. If you alter what someone had written, your name appears as co-author of the piece of information. The original author can see what changes were made exactly. A text can be produced collectively and remotely. Waves can me made publicly available.

It can even be useful for journalism, as a collaborative writing and editing tool, or as an interesting place for reading news and leaving comments directly on the text. As Jeff Jarvis suggests, "Imagine a team of reporters - together with witnesses on the scene - able to contribute photos and news to the same Wave (formerly known as a story or a page). One can write up what is known; a witness can add facts from the scene and photos; an editor or reader can ask questions. And it is all contained under a single address - a permalink for the story - that is constantly updated from a collaborative team." The opportunities are vast.

Wave is a new tool. It still looks like something for the future - it will maybe be interesting when everyone else is there. It may even substitute e-mail as a quick form of communication. But, for now, it appears to be just a very well performed idea.


(Published: 11.11.2009.)