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Making Waves, Google Style |
| After the release of around one lakh invitations on September 30, Google is slowly building up the 'hype' |
| Sudesh Prasad |
| Tuesday, October 27, 2009 |
GoogleWave is the center of discussion on all social networking and
blogging sites with requests for invitation are flowing in. GoogleWave
is a brainchild of two brothers Jens Rasmussen and Lars Rasmussen,
co-founders of a Sydney-based company called Where 2
Technologies which was acquired by Google in October 2004.
Incidentally, this was the team which also created Google Maps.
GoogleWave builds on the concepts of AJAX. The idea behind Wave is to
make it an ultimate collaboration tool where users can use social
networking, mail, wikis and instant messaging in single integrated
browser-based client.
Google officially describes it as “A wave is equal
parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work
together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. A
wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit
the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then
playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when. A
wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a
wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with
extensions in real-time”
Some
Teething Problems
Google is trying to repeat the 'invitation' success it had with the
Gmail with GoogleWave. But unlike Gmail 'invitations' which were
instantaneous (a Gmail user inviting another user used to get instant
mail asking the person to sign up), invitations, which Google calls
'nominations' for GoogleWave is not real time. It says,
“Invite others to Google Wave. Google Wave is more fun when
you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like
to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky
at times. Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of
stamps to lick. Happy waving!” By delaying 'nominations'
Google is testing the patience of users who are keen on having an
account and surprisingly it is not clear as to when the 'invitees'
would actually get the official mail from GoogleWave so that users can
activate account.
If you are desperate to use GoogleWave and have a IE (any version), it
is highly advisable to install Google Chrome as it just refused to work
on IE 8 (despite installing Google Chrome Frame plugin) and Wave Window
does not show up. Also, in the contacts section, I was
surprised to find the pre-presence of some people who are not even on
my Gtalk. I am still trying to figure out why they are there in the
first place. Another thing I noticed, in case you log out of your
Gmail, Googlewave also logs out which might not be liked by all users.
After you log out from Gmail, a message is visible on the top center
which says “You are offline, with a hyperlinked Connect Now
option. But it refuses to connect despite multiple tries. Finally, one
needs to 'sign out' and log in again. Tried accessing “manage
contacts' but each time I tried, it gave a page which said
“invalid request' despite putting in correct ID and password
for the first two days.
However, on Day 3, I could access the “Google Contacts
Beta” window which provides you a list of all your contacts
and an intersting folder called “most contacted' which as the
name suggests lists some contacts with whom you have interacted the
most (probably based on mails you have sent on Gmail). Another
interesting piece of thing on the contact page is the 'suggestion'
thing (made popular by Facebook and Linkedin which keeps popping up
'people you might know'. Under “Missing someone?”
It says, “It's easy to add frequently emailed people to My
Contacts using our suggestions.” As you click on
“View Suggestion” , it provides a list of
“Suggested Contacts” (It suggested me 168
contacts). There is also an option to import and export as well.
What
is in it for Business?
Google has provided 3 examples two show how businesses can benefit out
of the GoogleWave. The first example it provides is that of SAP which
created an application within Wave called Gravity providing real-time,
cloud-based collaborative business process modelling. In the demo, SAP
built, it used Gravity to facilitate the development of high
level process descriptions for two merging companies, BCD South Bank
and FH Insurance. Similarly, salesforce.com and mediawikiwave are
trying to use Wave for their collaborative efforts.
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