Google Wave for Dummies

I was just invited by Google Wave from a Usagi Project member a couple days ago.

Well, since Google team doesn't always promote their product as well as Apple marketing team. I had a very hard time understanding the potential of Google Wave.

But once I got into the Google Wave. I suddently realized the potential.



Google Wave is Advanced Chat and Email system without "replying"

Or I could just say that it is a whiteboard on the net.

For example, in the traditional email system, you:

1. Create proposal/estimate
2. Send an email to your customer/partner
3. Your customer/partner receive email
4. Read an email body / Open an attachment
5. Reply the email or modified the attached document
6. Send back the reply
7. You check
8. Repeat the same process

Google Wave will remove all these steps. Since you are directly working with your partner/customer on the message (wave)



Google Wave is "message" version of Wikipedia or concrete5 CMS

So I can say that Google Wave is more intuitive version of Wikipedia or concrete5 CMS.

Mediawiki and concrete5 CMS are both well-designed knowledge based CMS.

They are made to display and ditribute the knowledge.

concrete5 are made to create the web site at the beginning, but because its intuitive and advanced permission model, concrete5 is also good CMS like Wiki.

But MediaWiki is "keyword"-base. And concrete5 CMS is "sitemap (collection)"-base.

So Google Wave is alternative tool as "message"-base


QUICK TUTORIAL: How to Use Google Wave for Dummies

Right now, Google Wave only accepts via invitation.

It's a good idea since they don't really have a good help resource, and Google themselves hasn't found the right way to market this service since they have a lot more potential.

So you need to wait for the invitation (My invites has already run out)

But this is an simple example of how to use Google Wave.

1. Log-in

2. Click "New Wave" to create new wave

3. The following is the image of new "wave" (message).

Google Wave is like advanced chat or collaboration tool. So if you don't have a purpose to create a document with somebody else, there is no use. You need to find your buddy, and reason why you need to create a document or do a discussion.

So being said... you need to add somebody to this wave by clicking the plus icon next to you

And add your friend/collegue to start working on the document.



What makes Google Wave stands out is you can see how other person is editing the message in real-time although you need fast internet connection and relatively fast computer.



Pros and Cons of Google Wave over concrete5 CMS

So I think we can take advantages of both Google Wave and concrete5 CMS.

Pros of Google Wave over concrete5 CMS

• Real-time editing
• Very intuitive
• Multiple-persons can edit the document at the same time

Cons of Google Wave over concrete5

• Hard to find the article (You need to create new wave, or ask your friend to invite you)
• Hard to navigate (it's only inbox list, and search via tag)
• No advanced permission models
• No advanced user management (No group yet)

So I think we can use both solutions under the right circumstances.


More Spefic Example of the uses of Google Wave

So the Google Wave has very high potential... if you want to

• create a proposal in team
• want to create an estimate with your customer
• want to create a contract with your partner

So, this is how I'm planning to use Google Wave as "Drafting Tool" with concrete5

1. Invite certain concrete5 Japanese language teams through our group site
2. create a New Wave, and work on some concrete5 tutorial in real-time
3. Once the tutorial reached the certain quality, move-on to concrete5 site
4. Publish the tutorial/document
5. Do some minor adjustment of concrete5 page that doesn't require real-time and multi-personnels

I just made Public Wave for concrete5 users

Anyway, I just made the public wave for concrete5 users. The image below was for Japanese users.

Search the following word

"with:public concrete5"

Let's do some talk via Google Wave

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