What’s the Deal With Google Wave?
Photo by Will "Wavemaster" Parson
I’ve heard the question a few times, most often phrased something like, “What’s Google Wave…do I want it?” Well, after wringing a precious invitation from Jackie I gave Google Wave a go. I can say now that yes, you do want Google Wave…kinda.
The thing is, it’s just not done yet. Your first experience might go something like mine: quivering with excitement as a Google robot delivers an email with a link to your new Wave account, eyes darting across the screen as you realize your browser isn’t struggling to load all those glorious waves, the page is just blank.
Getting to the goods requires a little understanding of how things work, and I’ve watched a few official and unofficial videos introducing Google Wave. It seems everywhere I look for a guide, though, I run into the same frustratingly long video by Google (1hr 20min). So, like many things in life I think the best way to get a feel for Google Wave is to jump right in and start using it.
The first thing you want to do is invite a handful of your friends, if you’re a good person that is. If you’re like me, however, you’ll say screw them and enter a search with the phrase “with:public” and watch the window fill up with random Waves. For example, I caught an interesting wave about Furries.
Including that first phrase, you can search for anything in the dictionary: photography, photojournalism, cameras…anything.
The best part of Google Wave is that because no one is on it, practically every Wave begins with a few people helping each other figure out exactly how the hell to use this rig. This also means that nobody really knows how to use it, so if you’re looking for tips from experienced users I’m sure you’ll find plenty of hearsay and people bullshitting about Google Wave’s potential.
You’ll also find plenty of messy Waves, akin to an ocean full of seaweed. Most Waves resemble run-on threads like the ones you’ll find many online forums. I found myself going through a photojournalism Wave just deleting blank entries, left over from people probing the new interface with their cursors and inadvertently inserting reply windows. That’s at least one benefit of being able to edit other people’s entries.
Overall, it’s like a dank outpost on some cold Antarctic frontier. Your mere presence increases the population significantly on a lot of public waves. You’ll find your replies will soon freeze your browser like warm breath exposed to the elements (at least on my computer). A lot of features have yet to be implemented, and intuitive controls are hard to come by. That’s to be expected during the preview period, I’m sure.
Though, I already like it better than Twitter.
