Overly Positive

A little while back an old friend of mine from my anime convention planning days managed to get her hands on a bunch of invites for Google Wave, the new hotness that Google folks are touting as the next generation in communication and collaboration. I have to admit (and those of you who follow me on Twitter know this) that Wave wasn’t really on my radar of must-have geekery. This is mostly because I’ve been battle-hardened by years of testing MMO betas, and while Google tools are not necessarily like watching the same two people argue about a class that is totally OP and “needs nerf nao”, it still made me cautious about buying into the sales pitch Google was throwing at me. But just like with anything geek, my curiosity got the best of me, and with the additional pressure of folks close to me excited about the tool, I requested a Google Wave invite. This arrived last night in my inbox and I’ve had a few hours to play around with features.

For those of you who don’t know what Google Wave is and stumbled onto this odd blog that is 100% optimism, I’ll review in a few short sentences. Google Wave gives you an interface where you can drag other Wave users into collaborative conversations that are kept as records in an Inbox. Once you’ve started a Wave with others, you can talk in real time (complete with typing), share resources such as maps and links, take polls, and otherwise converse. The app thus combines features from email, chat, and forums to create a tool that Google recently released into an invite-only closed beta preview.

Now, there are a lot of people out there who basically think that Google Wave is a great tool, but is ultimately not so useful right now due to the A) closed status of its testing and B)the fact that it does a lot of things we’ve seen before but makes them complex. I understand the opinion – I mean, we’ve all been exposed to things that are essentially “jack of all trades, master of none” and how they don’t seem to measure up to something as useful as the tools out there. But I think the charm in Google Wave is not so much what it can offer now, but rather what Wave can offer people in the future. Google Wave is a tool that I think is an attempt at being forward-thinking, because it takes online communication in another direction – not necessarily the next level, not necessarily the best or worst thing ever, but in another way that blends features together not unlike a Locutus of Borg – a sort of “Best of Both (or in this case, “All”) Worlds”. Picard-with-an-annoying-penlight-attachment almost changed the game, and Wave seeks to do the same.

The reason I say this is because email, chat, and forums all provide an appealing means for online communication and collaboration. Email is the defacto standard for online communication and allows people to shoot off their latest updates on a project, a re-re-request for a quote, what plans you want to make for dinner, and attached documents and pictures. Chat is real-time and quick, allowing for tidbits not really suitable for email to be shot out to people you know. Forums provide a public means of discussion where complex thoughts and lol-worthy linkage is shared, with a persistent presence anyone can participate in.

What Wave does is combine those into a single interface. You have an Inbox of waves that you’ve started or are invited to participate in, with folders for organization and archiving, like email. You have the ability to collaborate in real-time with other participants currently online, typing to each other quick thoughts and blurbs, like chat. Last but not least, you have the permanence and threading of forums, with every conversation and sub-thread able to be seen, read, and even played back as it happened over chat. Combine this with Google’s Ajax-powered drag and drop like interface and the potential for tools to be created for greater collaboration (a maps and poll interface are the first two widgets) and you have not what Wave is, but what Wave is trying to become – a new way to communicate with others online in interesting if not meaningful ways.

On a personal level, I’ve had a few small collaborations with others in my contacts on things such as the latest happenings in current MMOs, what to shop for on a shared grocery trip, and what places to go to for birthday plans. Beyond that, putting in the “with:public” tag when you are searching for Waves has revealed a metric ton of public Waves, which you can easily do with your own by simply adding the address group public@a.gwave.com to your Contacts (even when it says it doesn’t have an account). I’ve seen public discussion on everything from geekery to aviation to cooking recipes, all accomplished with folks around the world and in real-time. As a forum moderator, I have my concerns but for now, am intrigued by the potential of site-agnostic forum-like discussion across the Internet, with all sorts of possibilities within.

In short, I think that is what Google Wave is making an attempt to offer us – not something that is a diamond now, but perhaps a piece of coal that will be a diamond one day. Coal isn’t very appealing on its own and is a visual turn-off, which might reflect some of the public opinion about Wave. But the potential to be a gem is there, and that’s basically what I’m thinking Wave might have to offer us. Will it succeed? Maybe, maybe not. But like many things Google is doing, the attempt is not a useless endeavor.

For all you Wave users, I’ve made a public Wave of my own called “GG: The Great Gaming Wave”, where gamers can talk about everything PC, console, and online in the world of games. Be sure to search for it and participate if you want! As for Google Wave invites, getting a Google Wave invite privilege appears to be periodic, which means I don’t have the ability to invite people. When I do, I’ll let you all know so you can get in on the Google Wave invite frenzy.

Oh – and I almost forgot – the “lol-worthy links” part of online communication is alive and well in Google Wave: