Dipping our toes in the (Google) Wave.
Posted in: blog, news, technology Oct, 20th, 2009 | 6 Comments
A few first impressions from a very new Waver...
It's a big idea and it might just work. It's going to take a lot of people to reach that tipping point of universal usefulness, and they're all going to have to want to learn a new way to communicate online. Still, they said that about email once. And if anyone can...
I've found it hard to find people. Some people have found it hard to find me. Searching for wavers seems impossible unless you know their exact Google wave address, which is a little limiting.
You can't tell who is online. Apparently you could, but this function a dead duck right now. It needs to work.
I'll need to do things differently. Usually it goes likes this; I type like a mad thing then I read it, edit out half of it, swap the rest around, edit again, read one more time for tone/context/grammar... and then publish. Twitter meshes perfectly with this workflow.
On Wave the live typing interrupts my flow, making me think before I type, making me more stilted (and less clever-sounding?) than I'd like. Also, wavers can see how truly bad my spelling is (I know, get over it).
And frankly, I don't want to see all your editing either... I was happy thinking those gems sprang perfectly formed from your blindingly brilliant mind.
There are no girls here. Or I'm just not looking in the right place. Don't get me wrong, you lads are fun and all. But there must be some more Woman Wavers out there... and more kiwis generally.
Look me up if you like: kirsty.hughes@googlewave.com
(as an aside, it's surprisingly tricky to write about Wave without excessive bandying of naff wave-related phrases like toe dipping and riding the crest and diving into and all)
My 8 wave nominees invites were split 50/50 male/female, but only one of the women have turned up yet, yet all the men have.
Aha. Well, I’m not sure what that says… more busy, or less interested?
Some new observations…
I still can’t find people easily (no search function to help find contacts within Wave) - you either need to know their exact @googlewave.com address, or guess it accurately.
I still can’t see if others are online. They’ve added a small green dot to my avatar to show me when I’m online. It’s all a little green-on-green, and not terribly helpful.
It’s easier to get a Wave invite once you’re actually using Wave.
There are some women around - even a public wave for girl geeks. Still, mostly men.
Nobody else seems to know a hell of a lot more than I do, which is both gratifying and scary.
It’s definately interesting to use a pre-Beta (we used to call that Alpha) release of Google Wave.
I think it’ll work well for discussions and document creation by small groups or teams. For large groups, Wave will initially be good for discussions—I doubt a large group could create a single document together with it now.
BTW, you’ve started a nice Wave about e-mail marketing!
Thanks for your comments Cliff, here and on GWave.
I like your Sure To Meet concept. Does the website have an interface with Twitter or Facebook? I’ve recently used TwtVite to create a local event - less sophisticated than your product (by far) but easy to push out through relevant social media.
It’s good to connect here and on Wave.
SureToMeet is not tightly integrated with Twitter and Facebook, but we’ll soon add “Share this” type icons to make it easy to promote events using social media.
SureToMeet is really designed for groups and organizations that have frequent meetings, but is also used for some one-time-only events.