Google Wave is Here!

Back on June 2, 2009, I wrote the post "Google Wave: Google Docs Meets Email (& Social Networking)". At that time I was quite excited about this and I still am. They said that it wasn't going to be available until December of 2009, but I just received a Google Wave demo account (Thanks Seth) and it is quite an interesting product. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Google Wave, it is Google’s latest innovation in email.  Google wave is about having conversations, sharing photos and files, working with others on documents, chatting in real time, posting to blogs and lots of other things that I haven’t thought of yet.

Imagine using Google Docs as an email system. You write one version of a communication (i.e., letter) and then you share that with other Google Wave users. This document/communication is called a Wave.

Next, you add contacts. These are the people you want to have access to your new Wave. They can come to the single letter and then read, edit, reply, delete the letter depending upon what you allow them to do. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to send out 27 emails to 27 people, as you would do with today’s email. It’s a whole new concept (one video points out that today’s email system was developed the same year as the lava lamp so . . .)

The beauty of Google Wave is that you don’t have to worry about sending huge files.  They will just be at one site and then people will be able to go to the site and access what you want.  This can also be a place where you can share a large collection of photos or company files or . . . .

The Wave is more than just email. It can be a chat room or collaborative document that multiple people can edit at the same time. I would imagine that the Wave will eventually replace Google Docs. It is the next move towards a single app that “does it all.” 

Google Wave doesn’t work with regular email right now.  It is a system unto itself but they say that they are in the process of developing the interface.

A REALLY cool aspect of Wave is that it has a built in “Translator Robot.”  This means that even an a chat, if I write in French it will appear on other screens in the selected language of that user. I wrote earlier about a system in Second Life that acts something like this. (Language Translators in Second Life.)

I envision this Wave product as the beginning of a new Wave in online communication.  What do you think?

Here is a video which depicts 15 features of Google Wave:

Google Wave: Google Docs Meets Email (& Social Networking)

Just watched in introductory YouTubevideo about Google Wave. This was a presentation that was given at the Google I/O 209 conference (for developers). This was an early alpha demo so it crashed a couple of time in the presentation, but that is OK. They were showing this to the developers so that they would develop some apps before they release it next year.

As the title suggests, Google Wave is a new email system that merges the Central Location document concept of Google Docs with Email. This means that instead of having individual emails sent between individuals, the email will be kept in a specific place and then email would be a matter of sending invitations to the desired recipients. It makes A LOT of sense when you think about it.

Wave allows us to share photos by just copying the images into a single place and then each of the recipients will have access. They demonstrated how one person dragged the photos to the email document and it immediately appeared on one of the recipient's screen.

Blogs can be embedded in the Wave as well. It looks like the Wave is all about merging social media and breaking down the interfaces that separate them.

Since the whole system is online, it is accessible through mobile units. Unfortunately, the link didn't work in the demo, but we will believe that it works.

An exciting capability of Wave is its ability to provide collaborative writing. This is similar to the collaborative writing capabilities of Google Docs but it is IMMEDIATE. This means that your changes appear on the screens of ALL of the screens of the participants.

Wave also includes a document history capability similar to wikis. It looked like you would insert comments and track changes so it might be useful for assignment exchange between teachers and students.

I only watched the first 30 minutes but you should watch the rest to see the future.
This is AMAZING!!!

What do you think?

Z

Embedding Google Presentation in Your Blog

One of the greatest features of Google Presentation is that it can be shared with others. You can embed the presentation in a blog like I did below:




You can also access this Google Presentation through this URL.

When you access a Google Presentation in this way, you can actually become 100% engaged in the presentation because you can add your ideas through the chat window. This requires you to sign-in with your Google account, but you become part of the discussion.
I have borrowed instructions in how to do this from the Tech Tips Tuesday blog.

Here's how it works:

1. Go to http://docs.google.com
2. Upload you PowerPoint file to Google Presentations (up to 10MB from your computer)
3. Warning: Not all formatting features from Design Templates will always be preserved and there is NO animation.
4. When you publish your presentation to the Internet anyone will be able to access and view it online. They will also be able to join the presentation online and chat with others also viewing the presentation. Your document will be assigned a unique address (URL) on google.com. To do this go to Share button (upper right of screen) and choose Publish.
5. Click on the published link and this will open up your PowerPoint online and a chat window will appear on the right side of the screen.
6. In order for audience members to discuss the presentation, they will need to log into their Google account so their name will appear in the chat window.
7. Google Presentations also provides you with the embed code if you want to place your Google presentation in a webpage, blog or wiki.
8. Click HERE to view a sample presentation and its chat window.

Perhaps the best part of this using this Presentation program is that you can have multiple people working on it simultaneously. This means that you and a colleague can be in separate rooms in separate cities in separate countries working on different pages of the same presentation. I especially enjoy doing this while using Skype or Google Chat to verbally discuss what we are doing (and make funny faces at my friend while we work.)

What sort of experiences have you had with Google Presentation?

Z