The latest news and information about Google Wave
While people are still debating about the usefulness of Google Wave, it’s proving to be a great tool to make videos with. There was the popular “Google Wave Cinema: Pulp Fiction” a few months ago, and now we have “Waving Goodbye to 2009“. It’s a very well-produced video, hitting many of the highlights of 2009 in a crazy-Wave format.
Check it out below:
It’s a very minor thing, but in a text-based environment it’s very important. Starting today, you can now use “undo” and “redo” commands within a wave.
They use the standard keys.:
To undo something, just press CTRL+Z ( or CMD+Z on Mac).
To redo it, use CTRL+Y or CMD+Y. That’s it!
Again, nothing earth-shaking about this, but it simply makes it a little easier to use and gets it a bit closer to being ready for a wider release.
For a while now, people have been asking for a way to use Groups with Google Wave. It’d be nice to be able to just add an entire team to a Wave, rather that adding them one at a time. Google has just added the first piece of this feature. It’s clunky, but it’s a start.
Starting now, you can add a Google Group to a wave. Once added, you can set permissions for the group and interact with them in Wave. You can add a Group as a “contact” in Wave, making it easy to add them to waves that you create.
A step-by-step guide is posted in the official Wave blog, so check it out and give it a try!
Google has just announced that they have now sent out over one million invitations to Google Wave. It was just over two months ago that they invited the initial 100,000 to check it out, and now they’ve grown to over over 10x that size!
Specifically, they’ve sent invitations to everyone that has signed up on their site, and all existing users have been given more invites to hand out to friends and family.
I’ve noticed in the last week or so that very few people are asking us for invites on Twitter. I assumed that’s because most of the people that want an invite have one now — great! Early on, many people complained that Wave was pretty much useless without their friends and family there, which was certainly true. Now that the invites are flowing like water, we can really get down to business and figure out how best to use it.
If you still are looking to get an invite, just leave a comment on this post with your email address and we’ll be happy to send you one.
Google is in the process of developing a FAQ for Wave developers, and it’s coming along quite nicely. The questions that they answer cover four areas:
What’s neat is that they generated this FAQ from a series of Waves on WaveSandbox.com, then used the Exporty robot to push the information to the FAQ. They’ve provided documentation on how this was accomplished in case you would like to implement a similar system for your site.
If you have other suggestions for them, you’re encouraged to visit the Google Wave API forum.
The Seattle Times is trying a to use Google Wave for a pretty serious task — catching a killer.
They’ve created a public wave with information about the chase for the man suspected of killing four Seattle police officers a few days ago. There are over 100 people in the Wave that are adding video footage, suspect descriptions, police scanner audio, automobile details, etc. It’s neat to watch.
TechCrunch has a nice review of how well (or not) it is working. Some people love to see the flow of information, while others think it’s simply too chaotic. Spam will also be an issue for things like this, though this wave seems to be mostly on-task as of now.
This certainly adds a new item to the great ways to use Google Wave, and I expect we’ll see many other creative uses for it in the coming months.
(note: this is a guest post from Simon, one of the winners in a contest we recently held)
07:00 – Wake up
It’s seven in the morning, time to prepare for a brand new day at school. Let’s check last night’s updates, right from the bed thanks to the iPhone interface. Wow, yesterday’s party pics has been published on the class wave ! I can watch them in fullscreen through the slideshow mode, and even download them all later to keep them on my pc.
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14:00 – Free Time
Hey, a friend has just started a yes/no question for a bowling ! Of course I’m in ! I can even add a little message, for example to tell everyone I come with my brother.
I also discovered some great stuff with Rssybot. I can share them in just a couple of clicks.
If I’m bored, I can always have fun in Wave with several cool extensions like Wave Sudoku.
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17:00 – Back home
With Wave, everybody keeps connected after school. It like a mix between a big chat and a shoutbox. Everyone discuss with everyone, but we are always together. Even if you’re not online, you can still follow what happened with the Playback feature. It make communications way easier between us than before. No more grouped mails and single answers, no more multi-chats with half of people missing… But if you still want to talk with your Live Messenger buddies, you can right inside a wave through a dedicated bot.
Google Wave can serve as an enhanced dropbox, where you can both chat, share informations, but also files ! An simple drag-n-drop automatically uploads the files you want to share.
Many People seem to come to the bowling tonight. As several people are unfamiliar with the neighborhood, I add a map inside the wave.
22:00 – Party time !
During the night, I can at every moment post my feelings on Twitter and keep those you couldn’t come up to date, right inside Wave web app in my phone !
OK, all that was maybe a little utopian for now, and yes I’m still the only in my class to have my Google Wave access… But I may be the daily basis for many people in a few years ! Wave clearly have an amazing potential, and could be able to replace current instant messaging softwares, protocols and habits. It could open a new way for sharing and opening to the world.
We’ve been giving out invites for about four hours today, and we’ve still got a few left! A ton of you have donated them to us, and we’re handing them out as fast as we can.
As of this writing, everyone that has requested an invite (either via Twitter or by leaving a comment) has had one sent their way. Remember that it can often take a few days for your invite to arrive.
If you still are looking to get an invite, keep an eye on this post. We’ll update it when they’re all gone.
If you get an invite, all we ask in return is that you mention us on your blog, or tweet about us or something; just spread the love.
Finally, again, thank you to all of you that have donated your extra invites. You’ve made a lot of people very happy today!
The list of who we’ve sent them to today so far (we’ll update this periodically). 231 in all..
Via Twitter:
@MaxcloseBB
@IMichelI
@mrKirchroa
@easterlily49
@mazzavernon
@marcosdelcampo
@clownchialeur
@loveruncaged
@SpartanStevo
@uhgirl
@emmakp
@Iphone4GS
@xJenandJuicex
@ACDTux
@rajcase
@mudpupblues
@rajcase
@marwayusuf
@pabloenu
@7DaysJewelry
@Supra_Guy
@parisyanbul
@mischpoke
@ntsantanis
@karaki_
@ilmaars
@rajcase
@benjaminpmorris
@Shunyokohama
@chauhangaurav
@vorovoro
@mischpoke
@rob_foot
@mdrouse5
@luisgdh
@ricpac
@stephanspam
@Asela_sampath
@Pevster1995
@andyk25
@MYTICKETNATION
@rob_foot
@Ariadelano
@scottafinch
@testicklas
@A7med_Ali
@TwitJake
@shaunswingle
@LiorAran
@MohammedRizk
@JoshKnutson
@capecodcandle
@JoshKnutson
@BEPfilms
@Shunyokohama
@leaemily
@AF9210 (multiple)
@Akshay_dev
@DrDave_H
Via Comment:
Matt Ferand
Celia Ybarra
Alicyn Hargroves
James
lin
Craig
Kevin Ly
Gordon Crowe
Mihir
Celia Ybarra
Dorte
Ibrahim Sarraj
Rosalina So
kao²
orsobianco
MV
Dena Shelley
Debbie Jenckes
Jan
Badahost
Mohammed Rizk
tim schwerdtfeger
emma parkerson
jen
tiana
JoshKnutson
Pev
jennifer carter
Carlos Amaya
guillaume
Marcelo
Ilmars Mednis
Fernando
hussayn
adam Nash
Renegade
Joseph
Debbie Jenckes
Djaouad-Mahdi BELLAMDANI
Bastian
Benjamin Morris
Brandon Z.
Frank Z
Daniela Friedrich
Mary Egglezo
Joe Z
Ezra Vonnegut
Boris
Ray young
Julie Filiatrault
Brecht Nollet
Nick Warrington
Kiff Newby
Josh
Kerri
Johan krafft
Kim
resha
Brandon
Miriam Loeber
Clint
Lyndie
Shaun Collins
John mathern
WOHS SNHS
Kevin L
Nicklas
Tetsuya Hara
anna
Voro Gomez
Marwa Yusuf
Vandressa
John Badalamenti
Tobias Mayer
Jennifer Campos
AMohamed
john ojewole
Alice Mckay
Florian Reinert
Janis Bernats
Kevin Duffy
Julie
SuperSan
Kleber
Kerri
Atiim Wiley
matt
Marwa Yusuf
Joe
Johnny
Hemalatha
tybalt knight
Fabian Gutierrez
Marcos del Campo
Sundarajan
Vimala
UPDATE: 13 more sent, added at 9:35pm EST
@johnjwalsh
@wapaseeto
@Alireza_Samadi
@kenqyu
Devendra Kishroe
Yehoshua Solomon
Johnny
Babette Hayward
Chris
farhan
Soraya
Tanawat P.
Alireza Samadi
UPDATE: 57 more, and they’re all gone for now
@THE_MAD_HATTA (a few)
@king_jack_10
@vdubhands
@jorgie1983
@MIKEakaSHELDON
@policeshots
@rahulravindra
@ManuelaDiazB
@efrenpallorina
@harlukov
@18digital
@nadyalubnina
@vadykk
@mkhamd
@mitch15695
@policeshots
@efrenpallorina
Virginie
cagri topcu
Sean
eddie summerfield
Laaban Chok
Allin Winter
Hannes Rydström
Richard Johansson
Michaela Holmdahl
gonçalo martins
Carina Seger
Hanne B. B.
Katarina
Mio
Michole Mattix
Pauline Del Mundo
James Trimble
Karmayogi
Sarah
Erik
DAVID POST
Pat Han
Evalyn Gossett
Pedro Roldan
Kirill
Petter Söderström
Eleni@shoppingonline
Sinisa
Mitch Bus
Rahul
Manuel Funk
zzinger
Christine
Luca
Simon Nebesnuick
Haluk
Jan
Hanne
A. Burak Tahiroglu
We’ve been giving away invites on Twitter today, and they’ve been going pretty fast. However, we still have a TON left (thanks to people like you) so we thought we’d open them up here.
If you want an invite, just leave a comment to this post with your email address. I’ll delete comments after I’ve given an invite to that address. If you comment disappears, you’ve got one coming. I’ll post a full list of who got them later on.
Good luck!
UPDATE: The invites are gone. Please check back again later.
Gina Trapani and Adam Pash of Lifehacker have put together a book titled “The Complete Guide to Google Wave“. It’s a 102-page, DRM-free ebook that you can get right now for only $6.
If you don’t feel like shelling out $6 for an ebook, you can read the entire book right on their site! It covers every aspect of Wave, broken into logical chapters: getting started, contacts, shortcuts, gadgets, robots, it’s all there.
It seems like a solid book. If you you’ve read it, leave a note in the comments here and let us know what you think of it.