Google Wave

[JesseK]

Google Wave is like the iPhone -- it's crap without all of the apps that are developed for it (the difference is that Wave will be the corollary to world domination whereas the iPhone is the corollary to socialism in the telecoms world...). I believe that after a substantial amount of community development, you will be able to visit web pages that are Wave portals and not even know it's Google Wave unless you know what Google Wave is.

For example, think about how AndyMark's website could be redone under a new Google Wave architecture. Andy could answer questions if he were online, and we could all post photos of the products in action. Additionally, we could post feedback on technical aspects and there could be a portal for requested features, parts, etc. We could even have a chat started during FRC build season in order to facilitate helping each other out -- that way Andy could focus on the larger picture yet the teams with questions still get a remarkable amount of customer service. Finally, to purchase the products, the Wave app would wrap the customer's shopping cart Wave into whatever existing format the current back end requires so that the payment system doesn't have to change.

There are other numerous advantages in online education, especially within the math and Physics world. Playing back a wave would allow us to see equations being manipulated on the fly, and if professors (or other FRC teams...) were online then a chat could be started at any point during the 'lesson' in order to ask questions about any individual piece of the equation or lecture that the student doesn't understand.

I think the biggest challenge is how to associate a website's current user database with a Google Wave user database without forcing users of the website to sign up for a Google account. (e.g. I'm JesseK on CD, but not JesseK@google)

[Nate Smith]

A few years back, I set up a "Kickoff Central" site which included a chat, links to the manual postings, webcasts, etc., and other tools for those watching the kickoff remotely. I've thought about the possibility of setting something like this up again using Wave, but have not yet been able to dig around in the system enough to figure out what it would take to set something like that up.

If I get a chance after setting up a few other things I'm working on, I'll dig into Wave and see what I can get accomplished.

[Ryan Albright]

If anyone has any invite's can you send one my way.

[Burmeister #279]

I have about 5 invites i'd be willing to spare for some robotics people. message me =)

As others have said, google wave is pretty much hype in my opinion. For friend-to-friend communication, I have facebook, aim, gmail, and Digsby to tie them all together, on top of the fact wave is still in beta and the only friends on are those I sent invites to. When/If facebook, myspace, twitter*, and gmail** become fully integrated in wave, just maybe I might use it for F2F.

On the other hand, for business collaboration, with a few (dozen) programmers to spare developing an app, Wave would work wonderfully.

As I said before, its still in beta. Its also still very slow (at least for me). I'll like it better when it goes full public I hope.

*found out twitter has a robot for wave but i don't know how it works
** as far as i can see, gmail contacts can not be imported yet. I also don't know if i can send messages to my mail contacts through wave.

[ATannahill]

I have had one (1) conversation on it that was neither a. testing wave's ability or b. couldn't have worked equally well over email. This is because a. few people have access and b. I haven't changed my mentality to wave being my main online communication medium. I think wave can live up to google's hopes, it will just take time and some work. That one conversation went great and I see wave becoming more instrumental on teams in the future.

[Karibou]

I've got 14 invites, PM me if you'd like one.

I think that Wave has the potential to be a great collaboration tool once the community grows. It's never going to replace e-mail, but I think that it's really neat.

[mrbob1000]

I too would love an invite, i know they are going to go fast to please pm me if you have one to spare.

[Gamer930]

I have 8 invites. . PM me if you want one. . .

I think it will become a great tool once more addon's and features are added

[demosthenes2k8]

I also have 8 invites if people want them.

[Wetzel]

Whenever I open wave, my computer really bogs down so I can't leave it open like I do gmail. Also waves take forever to sync, making real time edits really difficult. Once some of these things get sorted it will be more useful, but for now email and chat work better.

Wetzel

[R.C.]

I have 20 Wave invites, if anyone wants one, please send me a pm with an email.

-RC

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by rc_cola1323

I have 20 Wave invites, if anyone wants one, please send me a pm with an email.

-RC

You've been holdin' out on me man

[Cow Bell Solo]

I have had Gwave for a about a month now and am liking it somewhat, it helps to have people to use it with. (Which most people at work have it). It also helps for people to use it.

In the future it could have a huge possibility, plus it could be difficult to get everyone to jump on the bandwagon of getting a wave account. So far it is mainly people that are interested it, or have some technical background(that I know of that use it) not many are to gun ho about getting involved yet.

Plus being that it is in Preview, it keeps reminding me about that, Google does have a lot to do before they should release it. It could also help to have more extensions and USEFUL apps instead of 5 of the same kind that let you create a poll or something.

There is definitly potential just there is some work to do with getting it to be fully released which I don't see for a couple of years down the road. Just think about how long gmail was in beta, lets see if wave will beat it.

[ehochstein]

I think it would be much better if you could include people who only have regular email also -- Then you could email them and include them in the conversation, eventually they would have to get Wave, based upon the assumption that since Wave is more like IMing they would get way behind in their replies.

[Chris is me]

I don't know about you guys, but I prefer my Waves in robotics teams than in Google applications.

My school's Battlebots team uses it to colloaborate, share designs, specifications, etc. I really haven't figured out how to optimally use it.