Serendipity35

Last week, Google made their Wave product available to everyone as part of Google Labs.  Before this, you had needed an invite to use Wave.

I started previewing Wave along with a few others back in November 2009 and I was thoroughly unimpressed. Like many people who tried Wave, I really didn't even a clear sense of what Wave was designed to do. I'm not sure Google knew either - or, at least, they were unable to communicate it to the masses.

I checked out the first user guide to Google Wave, written by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash.They start by saying that "Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that's notoriously difficult to understand.

I'll be honest and admit I gave up on it. It is a solution to a problem I don't have. People who have given it good reviews find it a great place for teams working together on projects that involve lots of discussion. Sounds like it would be great for teaching online, right?

I wasn't the only one who gave up. Google even did a video that suggests we give it another shot.




Apparently, Wave is faster, more stable, somewhat easier to use and now has email notifications of changes, more permission management options and an extensions gallery.

Google posted some examples of Wave users. On the business side, you have co-workers writing software code (Lyn and Line) and coordinating ad campaigns (Clear Channel Radio) and an international As One project (Deloitte).

In education, they point to students and professors using waves to collaborate on Latin poetry translations, write academic research papers and build new functionality with Wave's APIs.

Just to keep all of us in higher education honest, there is also a teacher having her 5th-graders do their class research in Wave.

To try Wave, go to wave.google.com and sign in. Google Apps administrators (businesses, schools, organizations) can enable Google Wave for their users.