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5 things you can only do on Google Wave

12/01/2009 | By Fernando Fonseca
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My recent post “The 5 most annoying things about Google Wave” generated some feedback and one reader made quite a interesting question:

“Can someone (anyone) list 5 things possible on Wave that you CANNOT do using established familiar tools?”

The answer to your question is: Yes!  But, before I go and write one of my beloved lists,  I would like to point something that I think is important to highlight: Google Wave is a new frontier, a new way of doing things and integrating concepts and practices into one place. Pretty much like Twitter (or anything else)  its up to you, the user, to discover how you can use it and how it can be of use to YOU.  This is one of my quests and you can read more about what I think of this subject right here.

On with the list then! (That I was asked to be “truly unique, can’t be done in any other way, (…) meaningful and useful, not a solution looking for a problem“)

  1. Collaborate: make a new wave, invite those involved in creating any type of document (or even code) and start working. I am aware that etherpad does this already, and does it well ,but it doesn’t allow you to share backup documentation, like a PDF document,  that can be shared with all those involved. With Google Wave you also  have the ability to add more people to that wave and,  for them  to get up to speed with everything that happened before,  all they have to do is click on the Playback button.
  2. Get Feedback: If you are attending or organizing a conference you can open a wave and search for people (using Twitter for example) who are at the same conference and invite them. At the end of the conference you will have a finished document with the different points of view ready to be published. Also very useful to receive feedback in real time, in more than 140 characters, to the conference’s speakers.
  3. Create Knowledge: Wave is amazing to do this! Make a new wave and establish it as your official Help Desk. Use another Wave to be used as a FAQ. Wait! Wait! I know! There are thousands of Help Desk solutions out there but with Google Wave you have a service that is easy to use for your end client and, from scratch and for FREE, allows you to have a video conference system, the possibility to direct to specific departments (waves) and so on. Also on the plus side you can develop your own applications for it so you get what you really want and not a package.
  4. Learn by Sharing: There is a wave called “Music DSP Wave“. This wave has coders sharing their codes of Digital Signal Processing. You can do that in a forum right? But can you have several coders tweaking around with the code and creating a new code out of it? With proper idents? Ready to be compiled? That’s what I thought. Google Wave can be used as a creative pool no matter what you are into. Try it is my advice to everyone.
  5. Have Fun: Yes fun! Watch the same video at the same time with all participants of a wave.  Play Sudoku with 100 people from all over the world.

This what you can do right now, using Google Wave that is still on a preview stage. Are you using Google Wave in a unique way? Lets us know in the comments or leave a video comment. YOU choose!

More Articles By Fernando Fonseca

Author: Fernando Fonseca

Co-head of PublicSpaces, a company and netlabel based in Barcelona, Spain, Fernando is a serious Douglas Adams fan, cook, tech and gadget geek, strategist as well as an experimental musician. Lover of red wine , gin tonic, sushi, Monty Python and Karaoke, Fernando is involved in many new-media art related projects, (h)activism, and GoogleWave. Send him a tweet in klingon at @fjfonseca: you will make his day.


23 Comments

David

December 1st, 2009

For me the features that stand out the most and that I love is collaborating and getting feedback. Also I love the fact of trading tips and tricks.

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pinay80

December 1st, 2009

good idea. thanks for sharing. i was a little overwhelm with so many different functionality that i felt like a deer with the headlights.

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Dayo Adefila

December 1st, 2009

Well Fernando, I run Digital Marketing at an ad agency in Nigeria and I can tell you am yet to figure out if Google Wave was more useful for B2C or B2B but having read #5 Annoying Things You Can Only Do On Google Wave and this current article a decent – i think it can straddle both roles – depending on the users objectives and understanding of Integration. I think there is a lot of potential with Google Wave and at some point, influencers and early adopters will find the most important and easy to use functions and spread it to the rest of google-it-easy mankind, like me. Cool.

Dayo Adefila

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Your Name

December 1st, 2009

You can do all this with Eclipse ECF and XMPP, no google required.

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Fernando Fonseca Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 5:20 pm

True, but you need programming skills and knowledge that the regular user doesn’t have.

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div

December 1st, 2009

gud info……………..i will use all these

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Lisa

December 2nd, 2009

You can do the collaborating thing with Google Docs already.

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Tom Drinane Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am

Isn’t Wave kind of like integrating Docs, plus a chat room, plus a blog/wiki, plus whatever you can do with gadgets (like voting, ranking)?

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Fernando Fonseca Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:59 pm

it is much more than that Tom. Its a whole new way of collaborating. Forget about integration think innovation.

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Fernando Fonseca Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Lisa, actually you can’t do it to the extent that Google Wave allows you to.

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Dan the Man

December 2nd, 2009

Dear commenters and blogger.

Nice post – but bad comments. You all suck.

R: Dan

Now if this reply thread was done as a wave, then you could just edit-and sub-edit my response to look like:

Dear Mom and Dad.

I am not qualified to comment on such a complex post as this.

R: Dan

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Dan the Man Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 am

Oh and also, we are using it as a tool to collaborate with all the DJs/Artists and VJs for our upcoming Lazy Sunday Video/Radio show in february 2010. ( http://lsr.tpolm.org/ )

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Tom Drinane

December 2nd, 2009

Ooh – meant to check the notify me by email thingy

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Liz

December 2nd, 2009

1. Google Docs does this already
2. Feedback is a two sided sword there :)
3. This is a bad idea, often we write things to customers, then realize we need to reword it less offensively or in aless technical way, seeing it life can be bad!
4 & 5, come on, we do that already on multitudes of other websites facebook,myspace,twitter,etc :)

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Fernando Fonseca Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 pm

1. You can’t do in Google Docs what you can do in even, specifically you can’t play back a Google Docs document that reflects all the steps that were taken to reach a final version of any given document.

2. Feedback is feedback:The return of information about the result of a process or activity; an evaluative response

3. Well, I am glad that the people that are doing it keep in mind that they are contacting with clients: they can’t be aggressive and they should explain all issues in a clear way. Since the FAQ wave is already very comprehensive the questions posed to the helpdesk are usually very technical.

4 and 5: You edit code with people from around the world on Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. You play on the same Sudoku board with other players all of them helping for it to get solved? Please show me, I am curious :-)

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Renfield Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 8:49 am

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

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Andrew Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Wave is far superior than google docs for collaborative work, not least because you can multiple edit in real time, and see others edits in real time. As someone who spends a lot of time working collaboratively on documents in this way, while talking voip, believe me – it makes a BIG difference.

Not writing any more here, but the only limit to wave really is your imagination. The instant it is stable – you won’t get me or my team out.

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Belinda

December 5th, 2009

The Sudoku sharing experience would be incentive for me to join a wave. :-)

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Bjorn | icantinternet

December 7th, 2009

I only just started using google wave, but one thing is certain, it has a lot of potential. Even if most of the things can also be done by other apps, wave integrates them all in one. I think however the most important thing is to see what google’s wave can do for you. And for some it will be alot. For some it will be nothing.

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Your Name

December 9th, 2009

Google wave is roking!! The music Dsp wave which is new thing which i found here. I am new reader here.I came across this web from twitter. Your post is awesome!!

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danwtmoon

January 10th, 2010

I’d suggest actually that these are 5 things you could only do with Drop.io before Googel Wave launched… Drop.io has been around longer and has the same plus more functionality…

For in some ways, using http://drop.io is kind of like using a Google Wave of the future when it’s caught up and matured…

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Alex

January 22nd, 2010

LOL! Usenet was there, first, and you can do all these things on Usenet, too.

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