New Google Wave User

Great news.  A round of invites to Google Wave was sent out today, and I was among the lucky few to get one.

I have two contacts, and I plan to send out invites as soon as I'm able to...  I'll keep people posted through here, Twitter, and Facebook when I have some invites available to send.

Right now, my priorities are to send invites to family and my boss first, then co-workers, then friends, then acquaintances.  I will not send invites to people who randomly ask, so please at least introduce yourself first if you don't want to be completely ignored.

First Impressions

It's spartan.  It's empty.  Sudoku is hard to find.

Of course, my impressions were colored by watching Google's 1h20m long video on the presentation they gave at the first unveiling at Google IO...  I already knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how to do it.

Fortunately, you have a message waiting for you in your inbox that helps ease you in to Wave.  It's welcoming title is "Welcome to Google Wave."

Please resist the urge to click on the New Wave link in the middle of the big, blank, uncomfortably attractive area to the right.  Click on the message from Dr. Wave, and read through.  Click on the messages that they recommend.  Watch the videos.  Take some time to see what is possible, and most importantly, how to do what you want.

If you're like me, and just start clicking around, making your own wave, then don't worry, you'll eventually make your way back to the tutorials.  They're not only useful, but they're the fasted way to find a game.

What Wave Is

Right now, I can't even begin to explain Wave, in any way that can be really understood.  Head over to Google Wave's front page and watch the video.

The short answer is...  It is email and instant messages on speed...  Google Docs on steroids...  a psychic version of Blogger...  Wikipedia without the Colbert Nation...*  and once the games get made, it will be Facebook on a permanent adrenalin high.

You can send a message to a group of friends to plan a weekend trip...  add in a map...  add in the weather forecast, which updates auto-magically as the predicted weather changes...  add in a Yes/No/Maybe list to see who can make it...  Send messages to a small set of your friends without fear of the rest of the group knowing (i.e., "Man, I'm glad Bob clicked no.")...  and anyone can edit any part of the conversation, such as to update times or locations, AND everybody can see those edits and who made them, which prevents Bob playing one of his "practical jokes" that the rest of the group is tired of.

Then, when the whole thing is done, post your pictures into a wave, invite the group, and they can post their pictures in as well.  A couple of clicks later and it can become a blog post as well.

In fact, I think that will be my next project.  I'll try to write my next blog post using only Wave.

*Note: Yes, I consider myself part of the Colbert Nation...  but you have to admit that claiming elephant populations have doubled over a 6 month time period?  Yeah, Gullible.info wasn't too happy with it either, when they got duped.