Free eBook - Google Wave (Preview) Explained

An abridged version of Google Wave (Preview) Explained by Ted Husted is available for immediate download from <http://wave.husted.com/>.

A printed version of the unabridged version is available for purchase online from CreateSpace (an Amazon company). If you are struggling with Wave, or wondering what all the hoopla is about: Here's your help.

The abridged version contains five chapters designed to get you up and running with Google Wave.

• Riding - What did we do before Wave? What is it like to use Wave today? Tomorrow?
• Learning - How do we create a wave? Who can participate? Can we publish waves?
  
• Touring - How do we work the interface? What are the authoring features? Any shortcuts?
• Flipping - Is there a list of keyboard shortcuts? Search commands? Useful searches?
  

The unabridged printed version includes eight additional chapters, designed to provide a broader and deeper view of Google Wave.

• Grasping - What does Wave do? Why is it important? Where would it fit in my organization?
• Wading - How do we insert robots and extensions? Can we work with other systems? Other Google properties?
• Diving - How do we setup Wave? How do we store searches? Manage folders?
  
• Surfing - What are some typical uses of a wave? Can it help us at work, home, and school?
• Blending - What are the best ways to collaborate with others on a wave?
  
• Coping - What are some things that Wave doesn't do well?
  
• Asking - What problems do people run into at first? Where can we get more help with Wave?
  
• Tripping - Is Wave truly unique, or are there similar applications we could use instead?
  

But, wait, there's more!

Two other Google Wave ebooks are also available, making for a total of three:

* Complete Guide to Google Wave (ebook) - <http://completewaveguide.com/>.
* Getting Started with Google Wave (ebook) - <http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920000426>.
* Google Wave (Preview) Explained (ebook and printed) - <http:// wave.husted.com/>.

Our waves runneth over!

Google Wave Preview: Seven things to improve about you ...

While Google deserves credit for bringing out an early preview of their new Wave technology, there are several lessons to be learned from the experience.

1 No help link

If there is one thing wrong with the Wave Preview, it's that there's no Help link in the menu bar. Even a popup window telling us how to search for the (self-hosted) "Welcome Waves" documentation would make a huge difference.

2 Ambiguous bug reporting

The user interface has a "Create Bug" link (sic), but it's broken. Outside of that, there is a Known Issues wave, and a Release Notes wave, and also a Google Code issue tracker. Not all of the issues listed elseswhere are reflected in the public issue tracker. While Team Wave must have their own comprehensive issue tracker, there is no one outward-facing place where we can see if a bug has been reported or not.

3 No roadmap to indicate planned features

While there unimplemented controls in the user interface, and scattered references to planned features, there does not seem to be an outward-facing roadmap that indicates which features are planned to be implemented and when. Not knowing what is already planned leads to a lot of general agnst, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Also, since there is no list of Google Team Members, we can't discern between a pundit's guess and a team member's assurance.

4 No undo or revert

When you are testing alpha-quality editing software, it hurts not to have an undo. Worse, if something is deleted, by yourself or someone else, there's is no revert. One recourse is to use the the Playback feature and copy and paste a prior version to the head. If a Wave has had many changes (some are in the 100s), it can take five or ten minutes for the Preview to "fast forward" to the latest version.

5 No editing restrictions

While Team Google can "hack" sometimes a wave to prevent editing, no type of access control feature has been implemented. Everyone can edit anything, which, without undo or revert, is leading to lost content.

6 No external documentation

The only documentation for the client application is spread out over half-a-dozen waves. It's great that Team Wave is eager to be self-hosting, but, honestly, it's way too early to present the documentation as a waves. As it is, we're being giving a DVD player which ships with 100% of the setup instructions on a DVD. The Sandbox is hosted as a Google App, so it would be easy to provide documentation as a Google Doc. While that may not be eating your own dog foot, we'd at least be eating cat food by the same vendor.

7 No internal announcement mechanism

When improvements are made to the environment, the word trickles out. An announcement might be posted, or the release notes might be updated, but there is no central page where all changes are guaranteed to be posted. The sandbox inbox is chaotic, and it's hard to discern between important updates from Team Wave and the general sandbox chatter. Again, a help page that indicated important changes would make a world of difference.

These points have been added to the Google API issue tracker. If you have a Preview account, and agree, drop by and star a few.

Google Wave: Not everyone is human ....

(Google has made a limited number of development accounts available for a preview of its forthcoming "Wave" product. If you get yours, look me up. I'm ted.husted@wavesandbox.com.)

A few years back, when I first tried IntelliJ IDEA's refactoring tools, I felt like I was pair programming with Commander Data. In the background, IDEA would compile my code, correct my syntax, and suggest fixes when my programming got sloppy. IDEA helped me write better code in less time.

Being a Camelot of good ideas, Google Wave, in the guise of robots, includes its own twist on intelligent background agents. Spelly scans input to a wave and corrects spelling errors on the fly (using the web as its dictionary). Likewise, Linky scans the wave for text that looks like a hyperlink. If the reference leads to YouTube, Linky will even offer to embed a player into the wave. If language is a barrier to collaboration, Rosy the robot (no joke) will translate a wave into your native language.

To a wave, a robot is just another participant on the wave. A wave is often described as a conversation between participants. (In fact, to use a robot with a wave, you add the robot as a participant.) Just like any other participant, a robot can make real-time changes to the content.

Also like a human participant, a robot can interact with an external system. For example, Tweety can post from a wave to a Twitter account, and Bloggy can post a wave to a blog. If any changes are made to the wave, Bloggy will update the blog entry.

Aside from blogs, there are many other systems that a wavebot could update. While Wave has its own version control, a robot could also update an external Subversion repository with all changes made to a wave. Likewise, a robot could create a static HTML page from a wave, so we could edit a wave and automatically update a high-performance website.

Even though Wave is only in developer preview, there are already dozens of robots available, and more are being written every day. (A new website, Wavety.com, is already creating a directory of Robots and Gadgets.)

An "interesting" new robot is Eliza the Robot therapist. Eliza scans the wave input looking for chances to reflect. "How do you feel about that?" (Some people are calling Eliza the first spambot!) If you are unsure whether to chat with Eliza, decide with a quick round of rock/paper/scissors.

Already, I am feeling a need for a reverse Turing Test for wave participants -- is it live or is it cybernext?

Press the Button

If robots are the workhorses of Wave, gadgets are the showdogs. Gadgets add interactive forms and animations to a wave, imposing focus and structure over participant input. Several gadgets are already available, including Polly, for polls, and Checky, for checklists. The gadget API is compatible with OpenSocial, making a host of existing gizmos available to wave developers.

Of course, the real test of any gadget platform is games. Already, we are seeing several multiplayer games bobbing into waves, including chess and soduko.

Although the full power of Wave is still rising to the surface, it's easy to see that it will be a powerful platform for project management, content management, intranets, team communication, customer support, and just plain fun.

While we may not be able to use wave as a desert topping or floor wax, with the right robots and gadgets in play, we may be able to use it for everything else.

Resources

• Google Wave Made Simple (video)
• 12 Reasons Why Google Wave Will Change the Web
• 100,000 users to get Google Wave this fall
  
• The Fifth Wave: Google's Realtime Collaboration Tool