Today, Google extended Wave invites to everyone that applied for one. Along with that, they hit the 1,000,000 user milestone. This is great and all, but I’m sure that three-fourths of these users don’t exactly know what to use Wave for. I consider myself half and half on that aspect.
To me, Google Wave is like the iPhone, without any apps (or extensions in wave) there is really nothing special about it. And sadly, the amount of extensions right now is very minimal. In fact, the only ones I have used is the ability to embed YouTube videos into a wave, and play Sudoku with friends in a wave. Nothing too exciting.
But I have to say that I am starting to realize the capabilities of Wave. When me and my friend were posting YouTube videos of our favorite songs onto a wave, I began to think of an extension that pretty much was a music library where all the wave participants could add music to. Sadly, I am not fluent enough in PHP to make such an extension but I am positive that it can be done.
Another thing I have begun to truly feel the power of is the power to edit every post in a wave. At first, this may seem like a nuisance, friends editing your waves saying that you have a big nose or something. But once you get past the immaturity, it really is an amazing tool. Say I was writing a story with a friend; I could post my rough draft onto a wave and my friend would be able to read and edit it. I would be able to see what parts he edited and along with that, we would both be able to reply to certain parts of the post giving our opinions on certain parts.
Google Wave, if accepted by the developer community, will be a very powerful product. And hopefully, with this recent release of a basically public beta, we will start to see the full extent of Wave. Having meetings in waves, writing stories or blogs in waves, making power points in waves, creating a music collection with your friends in wave. The possibilities, like with the iPhone, are endless. I just hope that it becomes as big as the iPhone, if not bigger.
Read [Mashable]
Regarding document editing… why not just use google docs? They can be shared. If you use google docs, then you've reduced google wave to a place to play sudoku and share videos. Not revolutionary at all.
I don't see wave being anything great until google decides to replace gmail with it. If all my emails ended up in a sharable and editable environment, I could start to see the makings of something great. Until then, it's nothing more than a toy.
I see your point and like I said, I think that Wave is like the iPhone in the sense that, without any developer add-ons, it is a useless application. Think of the iPhone without developer apps, it would just be a phone that you can't take the battery out of. I think Wave is going to be exactly like that.
There are a lot of great possibilities with Google Wave. Please check out our new site for info on Google Wave as well as opportunity to get free invitations to Wave. Let us know how we can improve our site! thanks!
Wave is amazing for groups. When I first got it I didn't use it for a few weeks until I ended up with a client project with a team of 6 people. I gave them all Wave invites and we started emailing ideas, concepts, sending images, etc. 2 weeks in we added a team member who could help us out with PHP and added him to our wave. As we continued to talk to each other our PHP guy was already up to date with the playback button and started contributing ideas. I'm now working with a team once again and currently using GWave as much as some people use Facebook or AOL Instant Messenger. Normally i'd avoid checking my Gmail because I know i'd get flooded with FF's all out of order @_@
Gmail was just a hassle when it came to things like this. But if you use it more for talking to friends, family, some co-workers, etc. I can understand why some wouldn't like it. I currently love it and it's rare for me to say that to something that's still in Beta :X Well actually just moved to Preview haha ;ID