Riding the Wave? Bring some friends! #GoogleWave

Everyone is talking about it and I think that no one really knows what it is [me included]: Google Wave splashed down on the interwebs’ shore and everyone wants to take a dive.

After a problem with my first invite [it got activated and de-activated for some reason], reporting that to Google and getting a new invite, my curiosity was growing and today I got sometime on my hands to explore it.

I logged into Googlewave and KABOOOM!!!! This “KABOOOM!!!!!” refers to Google Wave’s public timeline.

Imagine you were raised away from a big city. You have lived all your life at the countryside and all you know about the big city is what you watch on television. But you don’t have a television!!! Suddenly life plays a Hiro Nakamura on you and you are teleported to the very center of Times Square in New York, or to Tokyo’s Akihabara with its thousands of shops. You go crazy. You can’t possibly take that much information. You close your eyes. You teleport back to the country side. (You discover that you are, after all, Hiro Nakamura)

This is exactly what I did: I immediately closed that window. Now I know it was a search that looks for all the public waves. But as a first experience it was… scary and puzzling.

Soundclound Track Inside a Wave

I started to explore making some waves, had a chat with Brian, and basically applying a trial and error method to see how some things work inside Google Wave.
The service is still on Beta Beta Beta. What works right now, might not work in a few minutes or for a few days (for what I read).
I played around with some gadgets(1) and robots(2) [the Aunt Rosie robot is amazing and allows you to have your blips(3) translated in real time ].

And then what? Right… err…. mmm…. Yes… some more gadgets, some robots… Found out a way to insert a html page inside of a Wave….

The truth is: without contacts and people to interact with Google Wave is nothing. You can have some limited fun exploring some of the gadgets and robots but this is all about collaboration. On that level I think that the potential is huge. While having my first ever Google Wave chat with Brian we started to talk about the potentials, the future potential that such a tool has: Online collaboration will never be the same.

For now, if you have some contacts already on Google Wave the experience will be fun: This is pioneering work on uncharted territory and it will be fun to see how people will use it.

If you don’t have none of your contacts already on Google Wave well there are two options:

One option is to create your own wave, make it public and see what happens. If the theme of your wave is interesting enough you will see people joining it.

The second option has you teleporting again to that “Public Waves” timeline and find people with the same interests and add them to your contacts. At the end is like surfing: you have your board, you have the waves and all those other surfers around you. It is more fun if you can share your experience.

If you want to find me at the wave just look for me at quarter dot bit [at no spam] googlewave dot com

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(1) Gadgets: URLs that you insert that allow for extended functionality like inserting a web page’s content on a wave.

(2) Robots: They are a part of your contacts list on the Wave and allow you to play the wizard: from translation to rss feeds robots are your friends.

(3) blips: What Google calls every entry that you put on a wave.