Google Wave

I got me an invitation to Google Wave from Ronny Ager-Wick over at the PHRUG (Philippine Ruby Users Group) mailing list. Thanks again, Ronny! I haven’t really yet been able to use it as Google intended, although I suppose that’ll come as I use it more. In the meantime, some first impressions:

It imported the contacts in my GMail address book who are also in Wave. As far as I can tell, not all of them have GMail addresses but I could be wrong, haven’t asked all of them yet. In fact, Ronny, who sent me my invitation, uses his develo.ltd.uk address on PHRUG. However, that seems to be the only integration with GMail — Wave doesn’t send me notifications of new waves, for instance, so I have to keep another Firefox tab open just for Wave.

To get me started, Ronny recommended a Wave robot, elizarobot@appspot.com — it’s not very smart, however. Check out this dialog:

Eliza the Robot Shrink: How are you? Tell me… 

me:  Refreshed, just got up from a nap.

Eliza the Robot Shrink: I’m not sure whether I understand you!

me:  Gosh, you’re not as smart as some Eliza implementations I’ve come across.

Eliza the Robot Shrink: Do you like to have come across?

Eliza the Robot Shrink might not be an official Wave robot, but still, the dialog shows you that you’re better off waving with a real person.

The Reply function can also be confusing. If you use the Reply button at the top of  the wave window, you get a wave at the top level. If you hover your mouse at the bottom of the wave, the border turns to a double-line, and you can click it to compose a reply that’ll be one level below that wave — i.e., indented a single tab setting. That’s about as deep as the threading goes, at least in my situation — in other words, if I click on the bottom border of a wave that’s already indented, the reply is at the same level as that wave.

You can attach files to your waves. Now it will be interesting to find out how this works. With email, you attach a file (e.g., a document, graphic image, or presentation) to colleagues, then each downloads it,  emails comments, and the original source of the file updates it and uploads it again. I created a wave with an .RTF attached, modified the RTF, and the modifications came through. This means an end to the back-and-forth uploading and downloading and re-uploading and re-downloading that email requires.

More on Wave as I use it as designed. I expect to be using it seriously over the next few days.

In the meantime, I don’t have any invites yet to give out, so please don’t ask. When I do get the ability to give them out, you’ll hear from it here.