First Impressions of Google Wave
Posted on · · Tags: google wave
So, I received an invitation to Google Wave yesterday, and I’ve been playing around with it quite a lot since that. One of the practical things about this sandbox access is that you actually get two users in the sandbox, one that is username@wavesandbox.com, and another called username-test@wavesandbox.com. This enables you to do some testing with yourself, and not having to bother everyone else with it.
Accounts at wavesandbox.com comes with Google Apps as well, so you have access to mail, docs, calendar and the regular Google Apps settings.
The Web interface looks very much like the Gmail interface, with some polishing. It’s three columns instead of the two in Gmail; on the left you have a navigation pane that lets you browse your waves by saved searches, folders, and some other. There’s also a settings menu under this pane, but this has not been implemented yet. In the middle you have a list over all waves in the category you’re in, which looks a lot like your inbox in gmail. On the right, you have the “show” view. This is where you view a selected wave, and can do all the magic editing, drag’n’drop of images etc. One very nice feature is that you can minimize “windows” within this web gui, to give more room to the ones you use at the moment.
Even though this is still a preview and it has some lacking features and a whole lot bugs, I can clearly see how this is going to be a liberation and replacement for most businesses that are currently using mail, forums, CRM systems, IM and other communication tools. Google Wave is all of these systems mixed together into awesomeness, plus a lot more.
Today (whenever I have some spare time) I will try to write my first robot to get to know the API a bit. Playing with the idea that Google Wave would be an awesome tool for collaborating on a CMS/Blog like this, so that will probably be my first little project.
Some other Google Wave articles worth reading:
