Shona, one of my blogger buddies sent me an invite a couple of weeks back to try out Google Wave. Since I love fooling around with online tools, I took her up on her offer. And, so far the experience has been terrific.
For those who are not too sure what Google Wave is all about, here’s a brief description from Mashable:
Google Wave is a real-time communication platform. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. You can bring a group of friends or business partners together to discuss how your day has been or share files.
Here is a screenshot showing the user interface:
If you are a GMail user, you will find the interface quite familiar and easy to use. For others, it might take a little more time.
On the left are the various “waves” that you are a part of. This essentially is like a conversation that is stored in your inbox. You can click on any of the waves to display the entire conversation on the right. You just click Reply and add to whatever conversation thread is going on. Think that this is a newer version of multi-people chat, and you have got the concept. When any wave is in Bold, that indicates that someone has updated a wave in your inbox. If a contact of yours is online, a little green dot appears on his or her icon.
We started using Google Wave as an online book club chat, and so far it’s been working super. Google Wave allows you to add a variety of gadgets in your chat. We used a Yes/No/Maybe gadget to get people to vote on something, and it worked terrific.
Apart from the basic chat facilities, there appears to be tons of other features that sound really interesting. Apparently, if all that I read is true you can even use Google Wave to post to your blog or even embed your wave on a blog!
For me, though, this much is enough for me to give it a Thumbs up and urge others to try it out.
For more information about Google Wave, check out the following links:
- Mashable’s Google Wave Guide for all the info on Google Wave
- Google Wave Updates to get an invitation to the Sign-up form
All the best and happy waving 🙂
I really want to like Google Wave but I haven’t found the right use for it. I guess I’ll just wait till something pops up.
Wave was tough to decipher at first, but once I got used to it, it became great fun! It’s amazing waving with you, Shona, Veens and the others, about books =)
Yes, Kals…this is simply too addictive.
Unfortunately, past couple of weeks been swamped with too much work in office to actually do much with it 🙁
Ok, Yesterday I got the invite and got in the wave… now I have to explore… thanks girl for blogging about it.
Great blog, Nishita! I’ll be back and have a proper look!
Good Post Girl! I think it is slow in Firefox… and i need to try out Chrome to see if it is any faster there!
Veens, even I have to try out Chrome. Only thing is , my system is already so lsow that I am quite sure another browser install will completely crash it … so for now just managing with IE and FF.
I have a Google wave account too…but have not used it still! 😉
Now with a first hand experienced based knowledge, courtesy you, will use it! Thanks 🙂
Happy Waving! 🙂
Thanks, for this…, i didn’t know you can use it this way.
Sumana, let me know if you decide to sign up…all our book bloggers can be found in Google Wave. It’s a nice if somewhat cluttered way of discussing books.
Hey Nishita.. Nice post.. Wave is still new but its learning curve is really short .. People get the hang of it quite fast.. Ya you can embed it in blogs too..But to read it I guess u need a wave account .:) Beta version hai na 🙂
Thanks goes to you, Shona 🙂 I had no idea so many people were already using it
I too had received an invite for google wave but did not get a chance to like at it much ….I would do it now !
You are such a darling!!
I have been wondering how and what to do with the invite 😉 Thanks to your post, I can get started now 🙂
You’re welcome, Puja. Glad this post helped. Have fun with the Wave 🙂