Google Wave: Changing the World as You Know It

While you may not have a Google Wave account yet, it may be just a matter of time before you're invited to join in on this new and exciting personal communication and collaboration tool. No matter if you're already involved or waiting to join in, you can pick up on some quick tips from this article.

Add Another Gadget

If you want to build upon a search page like the one I'm building, simply mouse over bottom green line of that original Wave window. A blue line will appear, and you can click on it. A new Wave window will appear, and you can continue to add gadgets in this manner.

For instance, I wanted to add the FoodieView Recipe Search Engine at http://www.foodieview.com/tools/foodieview_google_gadget.xml. I repeated the steps above in the new Wave window, and the results are shown below (note that I changed Tom Morello to Peter Gabriel):

Now I can find food while listening to music – all on the same page. While this may not seem revolutionary to you, try adding a few folks to help you collaborate on this page. You cannot do that anywhere else.

NOTE: While YouTube allowed me to 'embed' a video on this Wave, a search for food in the food engine took me away from the Wave page to another site.

Conclusion

One current problem with Google Wave is that the invited folks still are trying to wrap their heads around how to use this tool. In the meantime, other folks still remain uninvited. But, I've already started a project with a collaborator, and I'll report later on how much ground we can cover through the process later.

One project that garnered some attention was the public manhunt Wave created by the Seattle Times to help catch a killer. That link will work only if you have an account with Google Wave. For those who do not have an account, this is what that page looked like at the time of this writing:

Currently, approximately 500 users have logged into this Wave to see what happened. It was a great way for me to test the "Playback" option that Lars talks about in the Wave introductory video. The playback option worked – I was able to visualize the Wave from its concept to its current state, allowing me to see the changes made along the way.

The public option in Google Wave, as well as the options for privacy, are amazing. The public option might help you visualize how Wave pages can replace wikis. You also might be able to visualize how a page such as this can benefit a company team effort or a brainstorming session.

Google Wave is a work in progress, but it's exciting to be in on the front end of this project. Like I mentioned previously, if you have not received an invitation yet, never fear. It's probably just around the corner.