Just What the Heck is Google Wave?
|
Dec 30 2009, 6:12 AM
The other day I was tending to my sheep herd and my Grandmother came up to me. She asked, “Grandson, just what the heck is Google Wave?”
Keep in mind that this is the same tech savvy G-mom that prefers to do all her computing in the cloud, and on tablet computer. She’s smart as a whip, this one. Even still, this one is radically different than anything she’s hopped into. And she’s like a million years old, she doesn’t hop without good reason.
Google Wave has often been described as Email, if it were invented today. Hurry; find your socks because they just got blown off! Don’t worry, we’re cool here. Not only is it reminiscent of Email, it also has a mixture of AIM mixed in. You see, you load up Google Wave, and it has a very Gmail look to it, with contacts and inboxes. Instead of creating a new email or AIM window, you start what’s called a Wave. Once created, you can add contacts to it. Your Contacts list on your left, Inbox in the center, and the Wave your viewing is on the right. Think of the left side of your screen as a Word document. You can type in the wave, add files, change fonts around and even add Yes or No polls. Once you add contacts to this Wave, they can do all those things too. At the very same time as you, and you can even SEE them typing. Find those socks again!
Let’s say that one of my Contacts added me to a Wave that had been going on for an hour or two, and it was a proposal for a future client. Hm, I wish I could see all the changes that had been made to this Wave, it would give me a better idea of how my co-workers got to this stage of the document. Well, you can. There is a Playback feature in each Wave. You can start from the very time the Wave was created, and watch as Contacts entered, edited text, added thoughts, all in real-time. Waves can be this living breathing document of total collaboration. When a Contact is typing in the Wave their name is right next to their text as they type. If they’re deleting some things, you can see it as its happening. The same goes for you. That’s very cool.
Wave is in its early stages right now. So much so that it’s not even called a Beta, it’s labeled; ‘Google Wave preview’. But so far there are very cool add-ins that have been created, called Bots. You can start a Wave and add a Twitter Bot, so you can see your updated Twitter stream and add your own statuses. “Eating lunch’ is my personal favorite. Let’s say you’re going to a company holiday party in a few days, but some are unsure of how to get to the location. You can start a Wave and add the people that are going, and include a Google Map, allowing people to easily find the club in order to get crunk. Am I right?
You can even add waves to websites and blogs. A Blogger entry can be a Wave, allowing it to be constantly commented on and updated by your readers. You can even stay in your Google Wave window and just check that Wave for updates, both it and the website are updated in real-time.
Right now Google Wave is a hot topic, and a large majority of comments revolve around people that say they just don’t get it. I tell people that it should have been called, “Google Brainstorm”. It’s a great collaborative tool for people that work together, like developers or a team working on a project. But, it can also be used just as a chat tool.
And that’s what I told my Grandmom. She’s too busy fooling around with ChromeOS to even care.
The other day I was tending to my sheep herd and my Grandmother came up to me. She asked, “Grandson, just what the heck is Google Wave?”
Keep in mind that this is the same tech savvy G-mom that prefers to do all her computing in the cloud, and on tablet computer. She’s smart as a whip, this one. Even still, this one is radically different than anything she’s hopped into. And she’s like a million years old, she doesn’t hop without good reason.
Google Wave has often been described as Email, if it were invented today. Hurry; find your socks because they just got blown off! Don’t worry, we’re cool here. Not only is it reminiscent of Email, it also has a mixture of AIM mixed in. You see, you load up Google Wave, and it has a very Gmail look to it, with contacts and inboxes. Instead of creating a new email or AIM window, you start what’s called a Wave. Once created, you can add contacts to it. Your Contacts list on your left, Inbox in the center, and the Wave your viewing is on the right. Think of the left side of your screen as a Word document. You can type in the wave, add files, change fonts around and even add Yes or No polls. Once you add contacts to this Wave, they can do all those things too. At the very same time as you, and you can even SEE them typing. Find those socks again!
Let’s say that one of my Contacts added me to a Wave that had been going on for an hour or two, and it was a proposal for a future client. Hm, I wish I could see all the changes that had been made to this Wave, it would give me a better idea of how my co-workers got to this stage of the document. Well, you can. There is a Playback feature in each Wave. You can start from the very time the Wave was created, and watch as Contacts entered, edited text, added thoughts, all in real-time. Waves can be this living breathing document of total collaboration. When a Contact is typing in the Wave their name is right next to their text as they type. If they’re deleting some things, you can see it as its happening. The same goes for you. That’s very cool.
Wave is in its early stages right now. So much so that it’s not even called a Beta, it’s labeled; ‘Google Wave preview’. But so far there are very cool add-ins that have been created, called Bots. You can start a Wave and add a Twitter Bot, so you can see your updated Twitter stream and add your own statuses. “Eating lunch’ is my personal favorite. Let’s say you’re going to a company holiday party in a few days, but some are unsure of how to get to the location. You can start a Wave and add the people that are going, and include a Google Map, allowing people to easily find the club in order to get crunk. Am I right?
You can even add waves to websites and blogs. A Blogger entry can be a Wave, allowing it to be constantly commented on and updated by your readers. You can even stay in your Google Wave window and just check that Wave for updates, both it and the website are updated in real-time.
Right now Google Wave is a hot topic, and a large majority of comments revolve around people that say they just don’t get it. I tell people that it should have been called, “Google Brainstorm”. It’s a great collaborative tool for people that work together, like developers or a team working on a project. But, it can also be used just as a chat tool.
And that’s what I told my Grandmom. She’s too busy fooling around with ChromeOS to even care.
Comments
Sign in to comment with your TypePad, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo or OpenID.