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Google Wave Out of Beta

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the still-a-bit-slow dept.

googlePLEXS writes "Google Wave is open to all users at wave.google.com, as a Google Labs product — no invitation needed. Google Apps administrators will also have the option to add Wave as a Labs feature for their domains, helping groups of people communicate and work together more productively." If you haven't played with it, it's worth your time just to try to think beyond the bounds of IRC/Email. It's not going to change your work flow, but I still think it's worth a bit of your time to see it.

12 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Yay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now more people than ever before can not use Wave.

  2. Dupe? by icebraining · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dupe? http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/19/1721203/Google-Wave-Now-Open-To-All

    --
    Dilbert RSS feed
    1. Re:Dupe? by hedwards · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nope, that's just a glitch in the Matrix. It happens whenever they change something.

  3. Great! by pknoll · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now everyone can try to figure out what the hell it's for.

    1. Re:Great! by thenextpresident · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's actually not difficult to see what it can be used with. Basically, anything you type can be a wave. Any content you create can be a wave. The problem is people see Google Wave as the product. Google Wave is just the interface. Gmail would be useless if Email wasn't as widely used as it is. The Wave protocol exists for a reason.

      These comments here could all be waves. Facebook could be based on waves. Forums as well. You would still use the same interfaces as you do now, but you'd have the added benefit of a standard API to access that information, the way email works today.

      Google Wave is Thunderbird. Wave is Email.

      --
      Jason Lotito
    2. Re:Great! by Macrat · · Score: 4, Funny

      Can someone explain in plain English what the purpose of Google Wave is?

      No.

    3. Re:Great! by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Informative
      Several points.
      1. It seems (so far as I can see) to be a direct replacement for email if it gains enough adoption. All data is encypted, and (as i understand it) all senders are verified, so spam and eavesdropping problems are pretty neatly dealt with. It extends the functionality quite a bit too, allowing for native video, widgets, etc.
      2. It simplifies multi-person communication vs what you get with email-- currently adding a new person to a chain of emails is rather clunky: you have to forward the chain to them, and then hope that they correctly reply-all, otherwise the whole chain is messed up and if you need to add another person, he misses chunks.
        With wave, just click the "add another person" button, and they can see the entire conversation-- unless you want to keep certain parts private (which is easy to do)
      3. It consolidates messaging on the internet. Currently, you go to JoeSchmoes blog, 2 forums, and slashdot, and leave posts at each. In order to check your replies, you need to visit each site and dig around to find your post.
        With wave, the blog comments could be a wave, the forum threads each could be waves, and the slashdot comments be waves. You reply, and your inbox now reflects the subscriptions to each. You could reply from your inbox, while others reply from slashdot or the blog-- but its all one messaging system, which means that doing it mobile is now a lot easier as well (you just need a mobile wave client).

      Point 3 is especially big. Its kind of hard to see the benefit until youve actually tinkered with it and seen what it can do. For example I created a blogspot account, set up a test blog, and embedded a wave with an embedded sudoku board, and added the "everyone" member. Within seconds, on my blog, i had about 3-4 people playing sudoku and leaving comments-- in real time and with no refresh. I could later check my wave inbox and see any changes that had been made.

      THAT is a big leap forward IMO-- if we can have a better messaging system with unified contacts and a unified interface, thats huge. All of a sudden we dont rely on 30 different websites producing an interface suitable to a 5 inch screen; we can just look for a suitable mobile client.

    4. Re:Great! by noahm · · Score: 4, Funny

      Am I the only one that is none the wiser for that post? What is a 'wave' supposed to be or do? Can someone explain in plain English what the purpose of Google Wave is?

      The best answer I've heard to date for this question is "It's something that's supposed to make young people understand the confusion that old people feel when they try to use a computer."

  4. Re:Heh... by tarscher · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google Chrome came out of beta in just 3 months

  5. Re:So why should I care? by MosX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can already send data through the US Postal Service, so what exactly makes email worth my time?

  6. How do I get others to use it? by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every time I've tried to use it, the conversation dies off quickly and new ones go right back to Email. As a last ditch effort I even added a small paragraph at the top of a Wave that explained how to use it, and still the very first reply to it was sent over Email.

    It's just not intuitive or compelling enough to replace anything with.

  7. I love wave by Gnaythan1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    last week my wife made a schedule for potluck plans, in a wave.

    bulleted list of items, detailed dates and times, some friendly ribbing about doing the dishes, and a lot of things involving many other people.

    she included me in the wave, but no one else at first.

    some side bar sort of things got added, I sent some funny pics, we added a little "will you attend" applet, deleted the whole dishes thread, added the potluck menu items, and went back and corrected my spelling.

    she looked over that, made a few more changes while I was watching this time, then added several other people to the wave.

    they then looked at it... MORE side bar conversations happened,the potluck items started including pictures and diet information, and we got a rundown of who was coming.

    an hour before the potluck, one person changed his rsvp, and several more people wanted to come, we added them to the wave, they saw the entire thread of events, and picked up complementary things from the store on the way over. we threw in a map. and used a sketching tool to draw on it.

    I love wave.

    the coolest thing about this is how seemless that all was. My mother in law, and several non-techy neighbors were able to puzzle out the entire thing and add to it with very little problem.

    on a completely unrelated series of waves, I'm having political debates, discussing singularity related web-finds and running a hell of a mage game.