Today I want to tell you about a new service offered by Google: Google Wave. And probably, you are thinking “how original, talking about Wave at this point“. Yes, it’s right, it came out a few months ago, and it was one of the hottest topics in the Internet. It have been written, without exaggeration, hundreds of articles about this application that really few people knows about (if compared with other Google services like Gmail o Maps), and even less people understands completely.
The last weeks, I’ve been using Google Wave intensely, and not only me, but also the entire group of writers of this blog. We use it to coordinate, discuss specific aspects of the blog, write drafts of articles, etc.. So I think I have reached a fairly advanced in the use of Wave, and I want to share some of that knowledge with you, reader.
Let’s start with the basics. What is Google Wave?
Wave is a web application offered by the U.S. company Google. It’s currently in a very early version of its development, so it still lacks several important functions, and suffer crashes from time to time (though a crash is solved by simply reloading the page). So far, you are only allowed to use the page if someone already inside invites you. Among the blog writers have about 100 invitations, so if you want one, put your e-mail in the comment (not visible by anyone other than us) and say that you want the invitation.
How Google Wave works?
It’s hard to explain without trying it, but I’ll make an effort. Some people describe Google Wave as ”real-time email“, Google’s programmers describe it as “like the email would be if it had been invented today“. From my point of view, if I were to describe it in one sentence, I would say that they caught elements from instant messaging, email, and a word processor, and have added real-time collaboration.
I’ll explain it: everything is about Waves. A Wave is a kind of thread, like the ones in forums or mail-lists. In a Wave, all users that are invited to it can read the messages that are written, respond to, or edit them. What distinguishes a Wave from a thread? The real time. If another user is responding in a Wave and you’re seeing that Wave, you can see what he/she types in real time, ie keystroke by keystroke. Even you can be editing the same message at the same time.
In a Wave message can be plain, but also formatted text (in bold or italic, for example), links, Youtube videos, and what at Wave are called “Widgets“. A Widget is a small program that have a function. There are Widgets, for example, to display a map, or create an impromptu poll. You can also insert external Widgets (if you know iGoogle, many of its Widgets are compatible with Wave).
What is Google Wave for?
Well, it’s soon for answering this question, since it isn’t a finished product yet, but we can guess the uses it could have. Of course, everybody can think in other uses, it isn’t more than a tool that can attend multiple tasks.
- Collaborative document editing: Multiple people can be writing a document at the same time, and not damaging the changes done by the other ones.
- People coordination: In this way, you can think about Wave as a perfect fusion between the versatility of instant messaging and the persistence of e-mailing. I mean, in instant messengers, every user has to be connected at the same time to talk. In Wave, it’s not necessary (like in e-mails).
Now I can’t think in more utilities, but I’m sure they exist. If nowadays we can’t live without e-mails or instant messaging of some kind, I’m convinced of, within 5 years, we’ll can’t live without Wave. Maybe I’m too “optimist”, but I see future in the idea, and, whether it succeds or not within the general public, by the moment we are using it, it does perfectly its function, and they will further develop it, so it only can go better. Sincerely I recomend it to you if you haven’t tried it yet. And if you want, in other article I can write a tutorial for learning how to use it. You can like it more or less, but sure it won’t leave you indifferent.
P.D: It’s better if you use a Webkit-based web browser (Chrome, Safari) to use Google Wave, it will work much better.
