PluggedIn: Struggling to ride Google Wave
What will Google do about China? Can Google’s Android defeat the iPhone? Important questions all, but I’m still curious about Google Wave, and wondering: do I want to use it?
Now undergoing testing with a limited number of users, the web-based email/word processing software was introduced last year, but it should begin open access later this year.
At its heart, Google Wave is a document living on the Internet, that can be edited by anyone collaboratively. What that means is a person can be working on one part of a document while his co-worker is changing another.
For the moment, this is a technology only available through Google and by invitation only. To be sure, my contact list has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six months — but no one is Waving with me nearly at all. And those who have don’t really know what to do with this new service. A lot of the early users — myself included — wax on at parties about tools for faster collaboration and flexible access through a computer or an Apple iPhone, Research in Motion Blackberry, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, or some other new device.
Here is a kid – I think – explaining how to use it:
Wave: Who gets Google’s ticket to ride?
It may be the hottest ticket in cyberspace.
On Wednesday, Google will invite more than 100,000 people to begin using Wave, its new hybrid messaging-social networking-online collaboration tool.
The version that will be available on Wednesday is a preview version that Google acknowledges is still not ready for prime time.
But scarcity is a powerful marketing tool (remember the prized Gmail invitations a few years ago?)
Google Wave was the third most popular topic of discussion on Twitter on Tuesday, with many Twitter users pleading for an invitation to become a Wave tester.
The initial 100,000 invites will go to developers, “select” paying customers of Google Apps and individuals who signed up early to test Wave.
But each Wave preview user will also get the privilege of “nominating” 8 other people to use Wave, since like any network-based service, Wave’s value and usefulness increases the more friends, family and colleagues are on-board.
very good news, i am waiting for my invite from Google Wave
GROUP SUPPORT! That’s the key to Google Wave, and once they implement it correctly, I can see more and more people using Google Wave.
Think about Google Groups or Yahoo Groups or other forums – it is often ridiculously hard to read conversations because of all the duplication (replies include the entire thread!), and no one can reply to a post directly; all replies are after all other replies. Google Wave is already superior in all these regards, but right now there’s no way to send a wave to a pre-defined set of people (a group), and for people who are added later to the group to see those waves. Once those things are implemented, Google Wave will be perfect for Groups, and then maybe people will use it for other things as well.