So Google Wave is out, well, a “preview” version of Google Wave is out. I received my invite in my inbox this morning along with about one hundred thousand others. What does it look like?
Nothing remarkable looking there really, but what’s behind it is a little more fascinating (if you’re a nerd). What is that fascinating technology? Synchronous communication – as you’re typing the text appears on your Wave companions screen.
Whilst at first this may not sound like much, I’ve slowly found my head filling up with the possibilities. Here’s a test case:
I recently was providing some support to a client. We were chatting in Skype and I was using TeamViewer to connect to their computer. As I could see their screen I could see what they were typing. Watching them type I knew what their question was after they’d written a few words and was instantly able to compose my answer. Often I’d finished my answer before they’d finished typing their question. I’d have to wait for them to finish typing, send their message, and then I’d instantly hit send on my message. They must have been a little confused: “How can he answer so quickly?!”
I was their caped crusader, their saviour, the support guru with mysterious powers of IT knowledge. Doing this I realised how IM is somewhat frustrating – how long do we spend watching ‘Timmy is typing…’
Google Wave finishes with that – now communication is as synchronous as a conversation. What’s more is it’s all open source and adds a massive extension function to allow you to plug Wave into a myriad of possibilities around the web.
Interested?
As you can see in that image above, I have some invites left. Less than six though – I’ve got three left, if you’d like one, leave a comment here and I’ll send an invite to the email address you use for your comment.
Ciaran stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:30 am
Ciaran is typing …..
I’d love an invite if you’ve one left Alex, thanks!
John Braine stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:39 am
When I watched the Wave presentation I got thinking that the watching as you type feature was as scary as the idea of video phones to me.
Example: I work from home and Skype chat with my boss a lot. Naturally we have our disagreements now and then. And I often type something a bit hot under the collar. Then colelct myself and delete it and write somehting politer. So gwave seems a bit scary. I guess I’d have to really think before I type.
Ah – that was better than trying to squeeze all that into 140 characters!
Alex Leonard stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:44 am
@ciaran Added!
Joe Garde stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:48 am
Excellent Alex…
Alex Leonard stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:50 am
@joe You’re added as well – I have no idea how long these will take to come through.
John Braine stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:52 am
I wouldn’t, ahem, mind, erm, trying it out though.
Ciaran stated on October 1st, 2009 at 11:55 am
Ass turns out I had an invite in my dev sandbox of wave, don’t know if there’s any way to un-invite me.
Anyway say hi ciaran.rooney@googlewave.com
Alex Leonard stated on October 1st, 2009 at 12:03 pm
@john Invited
@ciaran No way of uninviting unfortunately
Alex Leonard stated on October 1st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Just so everyone knows – that’s all my invites used up!
Neil stated on October 1st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Curses….would have loved one !
Alex Leonard stated on October 1st, 2009 at 1:06 pm
D’oh, sorry Brooksie – things are moving fast on the invite front – 8 disappear pretty quickly.
@john Sorry didn’t reply to your comment properly – was on the phone whilst all the above comments were happening – I’m just not that good at multi-tasking apparently.
Yeah, I can see a lot of people finding that a little weird – sure there’s so many times where you start a sentence and make a balls of it and start again – and for some reason it’s harder when you know the other person can see everything that you’re typing. Of course there is some way to hide what you’re writing until you send it, although it’s not instantly obvious how to do that.
Kevin stated on October 17th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Anyone with wave Ping/Wave me on kev2501 [at] google wave [dot] com