Catch the (Google) Wave?

Posted by Erich On October - 22 - 2009

I recently received my invite to try out Google Wave – the new social media sharing application that Google has been advertising for quite some time. Needless to say, I was quite excited to give it a spin.

As I loaded it up and took a look at it, I noticed something real quick. It was almost as if I was starting with Twitter all over again – I was in a huge empty room. As with most social apps, if you don’t have friends in your circle who are using the same thing, things can get lonely fast.

I navigated away and came back to it a few days later and saw a few posts sent to me by the Google Wave team. They had given me 8 invites to send out to friends to try it out as well. I sent most of them this evening and hopefully someone tries this with me – otherwise it’s going to remain one big empty room.

Have you tried Google Wave yet? And if your friends aren’t on it yet with you, have you found any uses for it for yourself?

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  • Hi Erich and thank you for sending an invite!
    I've grabbed my surfboard and am riding the Google Wave as well!

    I agree that at first it is very bland apart from the 'Waves' of introduction.
    I've been clicking through the examples which load up more waves in my view.
    Doing so has started to fill out my wave space and has been giving me a sense of how it grows.

    As for finding uses for myself... I think I can see two so far;
    1) Personal note taking
    2) Productivity

    About 1) Personal note taking: Remember Google Notebook? The note taking system that is no longer supported by Google? I see Google Wave as Google Notebook on steroids. Everything you could do in Google Reader you can do with Wave. Maybe the framework and method of application are not identical, but achieving the end result is achievable. Oh and the social component is something Google Notebook did never get to.

    About 2) Productivity. I'm a great fan of David Allens Getting Things Done system. I implemented it in a few system (Evernote, Paper based, Google Reader, Gmailand others) and I can see Google Wave as being capable of hosting the GTD methodology. Features such as Inbox, Archive, Tags, Pings, Contacts (and Groups), Folders, Searches can contribute to the GTD Methodology facets of Calendar, Projects, Actions, Next Actions, Waiting For, Someday/Maybe, References and Trash.

    As for the application I can see an area for improvement. At the moment when you resize your browser window or collapse another panel within wave, all other components get refreshed. Too bad if you are watching an embedded YouTube Video at the time... it simply stops and is poised to play from the start again. If panel manipulation didn't refresh the remaining panels that would be an immediate functional improvement.

    Best of regards and see you soon riding a Wave with me,
    Sam Katakouzinos
    P.S. Again, thanks for the Google Wave invitation!
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