Google Wave revisited

Posted on 14. Jan, 2010 by in Reviews, Technology

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.

Meet Kenny

Kenny Conley has written 1609 posts on CMO.

Kenny Conley is the primary author of Childrens Ministry Online and the NextGen Pastor at Gateway Church in Austin, TX. In addition to creating the Illuminate Conference, a high quality kidmin conference designed specifically for volunteers, Kenny is a published author and speaker. For more biographical info, click here.

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  • Susan Hughes

    I”m feeling the same way – I forget to get on there & check things out. For blogs, google reader brings it all to me. It’s way easier to check one place than to jump into different waves & scroll through them.

  • http://samluce.com Sam

    Agree. I like how it facilitates a conversation like twitter and email don’t. I am with you I like connecting with other people who I don’t normally. I got all my blog posts this week from Chris’ wave where he interview Dr. Willard.

    Overall I like the place wave has in my life. I do not go on that often but don’t feel I miss anything because of it. I like that.

    I also agree that it has not and will not for a long time replace email. It may but they have tons of work to do to get people to that place eventually if ever.

  • http://westcoastcm.wordpress.com Anthony Prince

    Agreed – out of sight, out of mind.

    Adding the firefox add-on should help out a ton – thanks for sharing!

  • http://childrensministryonline.com Kenny

    Yeah, I’ve got the add-on installed right now, but no one has updated any waves since I added it last night… so I don’t know if and how it works. When I booted up this morning, it seemed like it logged out as well, so I had to double-click on it to sign in. At the very least, it’s sitting in the bottom right tray of firefox… so I see it and it would serve as a little reminder… but I figure it’s going to alert me when a wave is updated. We’ll see.