Google-Wave-1Several months ago I went on and on about Google Wave. However, I jumped on Wave last night and it was my first time on in about a month.

Oops.

So, I figured I’d take a look back and see what I think now that the newness has worn off.

Positives:

  • I still think it’s pretty incredible. There are some great conversations happening on the wave right now. There are some things I’m thinking about right now that were initially inspired by a resource list on a wave.
  • I’m hearing voices I don’t always hear… and it’s refreshing. There are some people who are very active on the waves that either don’t blog or don’t blog very much. Certainly a blog is a great way to get into someone’s brain, but not everyone is game for blogging. On wave I’ve been able to learn from those people.
  • It’s a big win for collaboration. I’m seeing so many people helping each other and it’s never been easier.

Negatives:

  • Not everyone’s on. It’s a walled garden. I may write a blog post and a few hundred people read it (although I’ll probably only get 2 comments) becasue it’s indexed well and people are coming from all over. With Wave I probably have a higher level of participation, but the only people who can view my thoughts are the people I invited. Not the bigger crowd I can get from a blog post.
  • It’s buggy. This is a preview version, so I’m not going to give them a hard time, I’m just grateful I’ve been able to benefit for so long from a program that isn’t officially released.
  • It didn’t replace email. One of the ideas behind Wave was that it would reinvent the way we email and even replace email. At this current point, I just don’t see that happening.
  • Out of site, out of mind. Google Wave is not connected to my gmail account so I don’t get any notifications of new waves or responses. Literally, I forgot and a month went by where I didn’t check my waves. Maybe they’ll integrate this later, but this isn’t good.

Overall, I’m still a big fan. I jumped on the wave tonight and caught up on all the conversations. I think I have a way to be a little more involved in the future though. I found this last week. It’s a addon for Firefox, a Google Wave notifier. So now I have a little Wave icon in the bottom right corner of my screen and when new waves come, I can quickly click on the link. I haven’t had much time to try it, but I’m betting this will help me stay connected even better.