Google Wave has introduced a ripple in the way we collaborate. Six months ago, when it was previewed, it seemed like a very intimidating service with the promise “to communicate and collaborate in real time.”

There was an introduction video longer than an hour without any “cheat sheet” of an overview of what it can do.The point is not really what Google Wave can do, but what it will do.

Since it’s a platform for collaboration, the users themselves will decide how it will be useful to them. I expect the use of Google Wave to evolve faster than we know how to keep track of it, and the users will be the ones who demonstrate how it can be applied in places we never thought of.

I’ve been using it for several months and have found it very useful. Initially I’ve been using it to collaborate with small groups as a mix of both email and wiki-like collaboration that make our interaction more effective.

Of course, Google Wave is not email, and it’s not a wiki. These small changes are what make a big difference.

Waves have a very short “start-up” period when compared to wikis. There’s no setup or wiki code to learn and it’s just like composing an email – start a new Wave, add particular contacts that will be interested in the Wave, and you’re done. Each Wave has its own dedicated “thread” that contains the contents of the Wave and is isolated from other Waves.

Wikis, differently than Waves, have an emphasis on inter-connectivity and a contributor’s identity is secondary to the content being shared. In Google Wave, however, each Wave is standalone and not connected to other Waves (though I suspect they will be able to be grouped or tagged in the future) and the contributions of each user are preserved through the use of avatars next to comments and edited comments and through the Playback feature (which shows all of the modifications of the Wave).

Still there?

So what might you use it for? Why not….

• Organize a small dinner party at your house, invite a few friends and put it all on Wave. Insert the directions and Google Map, ask everyone to list what they are bringing, and perhaps keep a running monologue on your preparations for the event. Ask your friends to insert the recipes of the dishes they brought, too!
• During your next Skype phone conference, open up a Wave to share the meeting’s agenda, give a space for people to share relative links and find them later, and take collective notes that you encourage everyone to edit in real time.
• Document the planning of a future trip. Open a Wave with your research, reservations, and must-sees, and ask those that have been there already to share some favorite tips (perhaps give them a few starting points like “Best Cheap Meal”). After your trip, insert your photos into the Wave and you’ve got a travelogue plus a great resource for another friend who may take the same trip in the future! Just add them to the Wave.

Google Wave is still evolving, and what I’d love to see from Google Wave in the near future are:

• Activity notifications integrated with existing tools we have like email or RSS feed readers so that it doesn’t become yet another service we have to log into
• Better control over who is added to Waves and if later they need to be removed (”take me out of the loop”)
• Ways to export/print/save information on Waves – what’s the good of doing all that collaboration if the content dies inside the service? (I’m sure that Google’s Data Liberation Front is already working on this.)

Will you Wave?

For more information:

• Google Wave : http://wave.google.com
• The Complete Guide to Google Wave from Gina Trapani – an unofficial but very thorough guide in plain English!
• Some quick Google Wave FAQ on Smarterware.org

photo by D Sharon Pruitt / CC BY 2.0