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.

The winner? Kendra Golden! Woo Hoo!

But that’s not all. That may have been my last invite, but I’ve got friends, co-workers and staff who have or will soon have more invites. So in addition, I sent invites to three more randomly selected people who commented on my contest post. Those people are Todd McKeever, Chris Chancey and Erin English. Yeaaaa! More winners. Who knows, maybe I’ll send out a few more when I get them.

So, thanks to those of you who participated in my little contest. Even more importantly, thanks for being a part of this community!

When Google Wave was released, I wanted one in a serious way. Several of my friends began getting them. I knew that several of them got Wave without any invites where others did. I also knew that the people who got invites only got 8. 8 isn’t very many. So, I was incredibly grateful when my good friend Matt McKee sent me an invite last week. Since then, I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with Wave and inviting others I work with on a regular basis. I wasn’t really sending out invites to be generous, but to people I thought I’d use Wave with. Due to Wave’s slow release, it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have people on Wave to collaborate with. Even Jonathan Cliff sent me a few extra invites to that I could get more of my staff team on Wave.

So, I do have one left and I want to give it away to one of my blog readers. Through this blog I’ve done my best to share ideas, thoughts and stories. This time I want to share somethign a little more tangible (as tangible as a web-based service can be).

So, here’s how the give-away is going to work. I can’t tell you how much I value those who read and interact with this blog. I strive to have good content, but it’s comments and interaction that makes it so much better. So, I’m going to give my last Google Wave invite to someone who has previously left a comment on this blog within the last 6 months. It’s pays to interact!

But wait, there’s more. Within a week, I should have another invite, or two, or three. I’ll give away at least one more, maybe as many as three. Whether you’ve commented on this blog before or not, leave a comment on this post and I’ll select 1-3 commenters to get Wave invites. In your comment, explain why you want it.

A few weeks ago, Google Wave launched when Google sent out invites to 100,000 people. Those 100,000 had invites to send to others. It’s Google’s way of releasing a new service in a controlled way. Some say it’s so they can test server capacities but who knows, maybe it’s to amp up the excitement. I’ve had plenty of people asking me what Wave is.

What is Google Wave you ask? Click here and watch a video about Wave (caution, it’s a little long).

I’m not exactly sure that Wave is for everyone. Wave is a combination of email, IM and document collaboration service. However, if you’re just looking for a better IM, it’s not Wave. An I don’t really see Wave as any kind of replacement to email as this time, so you don’t want it for that. I’ve watched videos how you can use wave to invite people to a party and everyone can help plan what everyone is going to bring, but I’m not exactly sure who all is really going to use that. Maybe if everyone coming to the party works for Google, or if they’re all geeks.

However, if you find yourself working with other people on special projects a lot, then Google Wave might be your new best friend. Too many times I walk out of a long meeting where a bunch of notes are later emailed to everyone. To be honest, I rarely look at these notes again. Why? They’re static. It’s just easier to pick up where we left off at the next meeting becasue collaboration happens better in person than it does in documents attached to email. Google Docs is better as it’s a collaborative document, but they’re not really a communication piece built into the document (unless everyone is looking at the document and the same time and you use Google’s IM client.

In Google Wave; however, the Wave would be the meeting notes. Participants can edit the document and post notes and replies and replies to replies all within the wave. This can be done live (kinda fun when this happens) or individually, it works well either way. Once people are familiar with the tool, I see the productivity of “in-person” collaboration continuing into a web presence.

I’m about a week away from using Wave in 3 or 4 different settings (idea exchanges with other ministry leaders, meeting prep/agendas with my staff team, Bible Study I lead with a few other guys). After I’ve had a few weeks of using Wave, I’ll review the experience.

Essentially, Google Wave is an attempt to innovate email. Although we typically think of email, the internet and all things web as cutting edge and innovative. However, many parts of the internet, including email are old and outdated, based on systems and technologies that are far outdated. Google Wave is a new approach to email, IM and other stuff as well. In many ways, Google Wave is a new platform for collaboration. I’m very excited about this. Collaboration is very important to me and I’m always looking for ways to do it better.

Below is a five minute excerpt from Buzz Out Loud about Google Wave.

Also, here is the official Google video about Wave.