Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > October > 13 > Entry
People are still asking: What is Google Wave?
I’ve been playing with Google Wave for about a week now, since a kind Twitter soul was nice enough to send me one of the coveted invites that have been limited to several hundred thousand (at last count) since it debuted.
I’m going to keep this short and simple because the hype on Google Wave has been deafening and the more people who aren’t using Wave hear about it, the more confusing I imagine it seems.
Billed early on as a mash-up of e-mail, IM, Twitter and myriad other things we use now, I think I can safely say it boils down to something much simpler and easy to grasp: Google Wave is like a set of supercharged chat rooms stuffed into your e-mail inbox.
It’s structured like e-mail with a stack of “Waves”: each one contains information about who’s in that message string (with helpful user icons), a date, whether there are attachments and how many actual messages are in each Wave.
When you click on a Wave, a window opens to the right of it and that’s where you can type messages, engage in video chats, start a poll, invite more people to join the Wave and attach files, photos and other media. It’s here that Google Wave most resembles a chat room and one of the fun things about it is that you can see messages being typed in real-time, kind of like the old 9600-baud modem days.
Each window (contacts, inbox, etc.) can be minimized, giving more screen real estate to whatever part of Wave you want to focus on. Unlike instant messaging, though, the messages in each Wave stay structured and stored like e-mail — if you close Wave and come back to it, those chats will remain active and you can pick up right where you left off (or read new bits contributed by other people who have access to that Wave).
That’s all. It’s not as mysterious as people are making it out to be.
However… we are seeing Google Wave with a very limited number of so-called “Gadgets” and “Extensions.” These currently include a Google Map that can be updated by anyone in a Wave, video conferencing, but the potential is that developers will add their own tools to Wave that will, say, include a gadget for including a Twitter stream or playing a Facebook-style game.
In that way, Google Wave is very exciting: it could be to Google what the App Store has become for Apple: a limitless platform that serves as the medium for all kinds of independent development, under the Wave umbrella.
It’s got amazing potential, but right now, and especially with the small number of people on it to communicate with, it still feels very, very early. Give it six months and we’ll see if it lives up to its promise.
Below: some screen shots of the inbox and Wave view:
Want more info and details? Lifehacker has an excellent first look feature that goes into more depth than you may need.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Internet
Comments
Austinites love to be heard, and we're giving you a bullhorn. We just ask that you keep things civil. Leave out the personal attacks. Do not use profanity, ethnic or racial slurs, or take shots at anyone's sexual orientation or religion. If you can't be nice, we reserve the right to remove your material and ban users who violate our Visitor's agreement. Click here to report comment abuse.
By Crasty
November 4, 2009 2:19 PM | Link to this
I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.
By Gordon
October 15, 2009 10:54 AM | Link to this
So far it is as if they've 'invented' xtalk/ytalk and IRC from about 20 years ago.
I've had a google wave account for 1 day and I'm already getting spam. Seriously unimpressed so far.
By Omar Gallaga
October 14, 2009 1:58 PM | Link to this
I actually started on a 300-baud modem. 9600 was The Big Time for me.
By Larry C.
October 14, 2009 1:07 PM | Link to this
I'm impressed to hear that someone knows what a 9600-baud modem is. hahahaha
ahh those were the days....chat rooms, dial ups BBS's, romance. hahahaha
sounds like Google is slowly putting together it's social network app.
Thanks for the explaination.
By Jacob
October 14, 2009 9:40 AM | Link to this
Seems interesting. I'm not sure what you would want to type in real time for. Maybe to show people how bad you spell without spell check.
By Allen
October 13, 2009 3:53 PM | Link to this
When is it being released to the proletariate?