Subscribe by EmailGoogle Wave goes beta (plus three invites up for grabs!)
October 2, 2009 by Natania | 81 commentsBy Natania Barron
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
I was a bit miffed when my husband got his Google Wave invite before me; I mean, seriously. I showed it to him in the first place. Still, I’ve been insanely curious since learning about the new product–developed by the makers of GoogleMaps, by the way–since I first watched the introductory video months ago. Right away I saw the value in the application. It seems really smart, from my perspective anyway, to integrate the components of GMail that I use most: email and chat–and do it in a much more content-rich manner.
From the Official Google Blog:
Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication.
Ten hours after my husband invited me, I got my notification and giddily clicked the link. And, yes. Well. The biggest problem with Wave is that it’s dependent on lots and lots of users and friends. It’s collaboration-minded, and that’s awesome. But when you first start it up and just see two people on your “wave” it’s definitely makes you feel a bit lonely. Okay, really lonely.
Sure, time will bring more connections. But the lag is a bit frustrating. With a whopping three contacts right now it’s not exactly bristling with energy over there. I’m surprised that Google didn’t opt for a quicker contact system, or integrated it with current Gmail contacts (or at least retained email addresses to make inviting easier).
All in all, I can certainly see how Google Wave is going to rock my communication world. I mean, I’m a collaborator. I have writing groups, activism groups, friend groups, family groups, blogging groups, geeky groups… Organization is always an issue with me, and even through copious Gmail labels and filters, I still feel overwhelmed. Not to mention that with my excessively short attention span (and love of tools like Twitter) the opportunity to communicate in one place is really exciting.
But the jury’s not out yet. Until I have proper time to tinker, and more contacts to actually make the wave make sense, I’ll have to hold off on a more formal review.
However, in the spirit of altruism, I still have three (3) remaining Google Wave invites. If you’d like one, just leave a comment. We’ll select randomly from the best answers and post the winners this evening!
Edit: Our winners have been selected, and invites have been sent. You should get confirmation within the next day or so (as mentioned, my invite took 10 hours to make it to my inbox!).
Congratulations to infostud (who made me lol with his typo), to protocollie for the most creative response, and to Brian for the poetic turn (I can always appreciate some good haiku!)
- Google Wave to come ashore in September
- Google Wave: Reinventing online communication
- Does Gmail Suggested Contacts solve the problem?
- Make life easier by automating all your Twitter invites
*Waves* in BSL (British Sign Language) :-)
It’s not a wave, It’s a Tsunami !
Thats not a Tsunami, its a bad Star Wars reference!
I’ve have been excited about Google Wave ever since they announced it. Unfortunately I didn’t get one of the early invites, so if you had one for me that would be AWESOME!
Sharing means caring!
If you select me to receive an invite then I will offer up half of the invites I can give out to other GAS readers.
Cheers from Canada
And if Oliver gave an invite to me, I would donate all – 1 of my invites! If we create a pyramid scheme, we can get Wave to all GAS members. Lets do it. Just slide the invite under the door, and slowly back away… ;)
yes i would a google wave invite that would be awsome
oooh. someone pls wave me!
I totally understand your frustration at not getting an invitation. I’m a grad student working collaboratively on assignments with a class group and this could actually help us pass the class!
So what’s in it for you? (I know, I know – everyone has an angle these days.) Well, I’m getting my Maser’s in Library and Information Science. Have you ever known a geek to not have need of a good librarian every now and then? thought not. How’d you like one in your pocket (Okay, not really. I’m a 6′ 1290# librarian lol.) But the principle holds…
;)
A librarian so excited he forgot to proofread his post. *blushes* I’m not really 1290 pounds. :P
I’d love to ride the Google Wave rave.
Hi.
An invit would be so great. I would enjoy to test google wave.
Oh Oh! Me Me Me!
J/k…but seriously!
This looks like an awesome project with wider ramifications in the long run…I wonder if waves will become indexed(to be searchable) in Google/Yahoo/Bing?
I wonder what new lingo we’re going to generate to corrospond with this…I mean with twitter we got “tweet”, “Tweeps”, “Tweople” etc…
With Google wave will it be referred to as Google Surfing, Gurfer? Surfers? Riders, Or from waving we can be named after enthusiastic wavers like beauty queens or parade marshals..
I’d like to have a Wave invite because (pick your favorite pun)
a) I’d like to surf the Wave.
b) I’d like to Wave to my loyal subjects.
c) I’d need a third Wave pun.
i wanna wave
Meeeee! Please me :)
I can’t wait to develop a bot for wave…!
Crashing, roaring waves
Thunder on the beach; they pound
My ears ‘ deafening!
-Trevor W. Hampel.
yeah here i am, i wold love a google wave invite :)
i want so bad a wave invite, if you send me one i promise i wil not urinate for 1 week (if you want so)
If only I had friends to wave at….
Google Wave sounds super-interesting! Would love to try it out…
I would love a Google Wave invite :)
What? 19 comments already?
Anyone else got more invites?
Very annoyed that Google still hasn’t sent me one.
Eventually I’ll get to try it I guess.
Cool, I’d love to have one. I apparently didn’t make the first cut…
Hello! I would like a invitation as the following reasons:
(1) I like to try new tech
(2) I am currently undertaking some projects in my organizations which I believe Google Wave can helps me and my co-workers work more smoothly
(3) People are nice ;)
Thanks :)
Hey!
I would love to try out the new google thing! :)
Google Mail was alread in the beginning awesome – now I’m curious about whats next!
PLEASE LET ME ROCK GOOGLE WAVE ! – Rock N Roll!
Greetz
lutz
pick me me me!
Let me catch the Wave..
I’d love to try the Wave!
Hello,
I work at a small company which builds nuclear reactors under contract for the united states government. Recently, we were working on a new type of reactor which we call ’squirrel fusion’ – specifically, we use squirrels to run on wheels made of uranium to generate both kinetic energy and then the uranium also is used to heat water to generate additional energy by steam. Our primary means of communication has been e-mailing of word documents with specifications between team members.
Last week we decided to run a test of the SAM (Squirrel Activation Matrix) and wound up accidentally crossing the streams of polarity, which was something that had been e-mailed to me in a word document that was held up by Norton Antivirus due to a macro in the document (my coworker likes blinking text and had included VB script to make text blink, but unfortunately the only way to do that required going through my contacts list and emailing nigerian 419 scams to all the people on it.) I did not receive the document warning of this potential hazard and as such, things have gone slightly awry. We accidentally opened up a portal to another dimension from which these crazy crabs flew and promptly attached themselves to the squirrels. The squirrels almost instantaneously grew to ten feet in height, blowing the reactor to smithereens and are now rampaging through the halls of our facility at an alarming pace.
I’ve been trying to e-mail the word document which describes how to deal with this contingency to the chaps in containment, unfortunately a zombie mega-squirrel is currently copulating with our exchange server (storing his nuts in it, if you will) and thus I have not been able to transmit the necessary information to my coworkers.
I would appreciate the google wave invite as we only have 48 or so more hours worth of food and shotgun shells inside our facility and it would definitely facilitate faster cleanup of this sticky situation.
P.S. if anyone has the phone number of pest control, if you could call them on our behalf, I would greatly appreciate it. The squirrels tried to climb a nearby telephone pole and skitter along the wires and cut out all of our phone communications.
Regards,
Protocollie
I want to wave, I have two whole high school FIRST Robotics teams #1510 and #2898 in Beaverton, OR who have been dying to use Wave in addition to our Google groups to collaborate on the design and build of our robots and then be able to share with the rest of the FIRST community worldwide!
Waving in anticpiation,
Katie Garcia
Co- Coach
FRC team 1510 the Wildcats
FRC team 2898-The Flying Hedgehogs
usfirst.org
ftw
From the guy who designed the Geeks are Sexy T-shirt, wave is the future. This will be perfect for creative clients who have needs. I can invite them to a wave, show them links to references, drag and drop sketches I have made, and have everything at the ready. I am also excited about the translation functions as this will facilitate interactions with clients in far off countries. Yay google wave. Invite PLEASE! :D
Wow, an invite to Wave…this could be my lucky day! I signed up for the preview months ago, but didn’t get my invite. Have been sitting by my computer since 30 Oct and waiting for it. If you still have one to spare, you’d make my day…month? Probably year:)
An invite would be great – I would like to try out collaborative programming and other development tasks using Google Wave.
Here are 3 reasons why I would put Google Wave to great use:
1. I am a Moosejaw customer (one of your advertisers). Awesome clothing and gear. I support them all the time by buying stuff, which I guess in turn supports GAS :)
2. I would promise to spread the love as well. I know of at least 2 dozen tech friends similar to myself that are in deep depression over not being picked :(
3. Because I don’t want it – I NEED it. I’ve been sitting at home watching sappy romatic comedies and eating ice cream since I found out my invite wasn’t processed. If I don’t get an invite I fear this could continue for a long, long time.
Have a great weekend and congrats to whoever is chosen!!!
-Daniel
Yo quiero la Onda de Google!!!
A lot of comments and no one interesting, can you believe that? anyway, i don’t want a google wave account
(not)
Progress the Wave to me, pretty please. :-)
(And instead of this text imagine a wave equation)
:-)
Please, me!!!
I can’t wait!
Oh!, it’s a shame…, I was a summer in California and I learned to surf in the ocean…, but now I’m back in Madrid [center of Spain]…, with no sea, so I can’t surf…
I need a wave invitation so I can surf again…, I love surfing…, and I will love it even more if Google makes the Wave… .
Thank you for offering the invitations [If I'm elected I will let you select someone to send an invitation ;) [if I have some...]]
Thanks for your board, I find it very useful in my job trying to keep the company caught up with current technology. Google Wave could possibly be a terrific tool for us, so I’d like to be considered for one of your invitations.
Thanks.
hmmm, I want to try this Google Wave of which you speak…
I offer a trade: A Wave invite in exchange for a tour of an operating Cyclotron facility at the school where i’m a grad student (if you are ever in the neighborhood)…
How about it? Particle accelerators are fun….
I humbly submit this comment for consideration in the Google Wage invitation giveaway.
Here is my shameless begging for an invite:
I LOVE you guys! Please, I would love an invite! Do you want me to kiss your feet? I will. I will gladly give one of my invites to the GAS community. It will be as if the invite was never used… :D. And now that I am done with shameless begging, let me try some threats. I will send my army of well trained zombie-ninja monkeys to eat your very souls with a blunt spoon if I don’t get my invite. Just sayin’
Cheers!
Nicholas
Because I’m geek and sexy… :D
I don’t have anything snappy or pithy to say, but…
Pick me! Pick me!
I long to drink deeply from the Google Kool-Aid fountain once more!
I just think about what I go through day to day at my office and can only dream of this functionality. I mean, the inline editing for commenting on parts of previous messages is a HUGE step up.
The developers here are continuously sending messages and when they only want to comment on a paragraph or sentence, they make a copy of the original paragraph then add their comments. Then using colors, they identify who wrote what comment. It gets really messy when they all send a message at the same time and they see that another message was sent, they scramble to send a reply. Within a half hour, 20 new message threads have started up from who coded a certain part of code, to people trying to set up a meeting for finding out who’s the product manager for a certain software, to which new feature of Windows 7 they want to kick in the crotch.
Ever since I’ve heard of this, I’ve been telling all the managers. With the amount of cooperation and removing a lot of confusion of daily life around here, I’m just jumping for any chance to get it here!!! PLEASE, TELL THEM TO START ARGUING OVER THE NEW WINDOWS!!! Linux is better anyways :D
I’ve yet to receive an invite, and that upsts me because I do have a user community that would jump all over this. I *told* Google that when I applied and they should know it anyway.
Oh well. Eventually they’ll get around to me. I’ll have more gray hairs by then, but it WILL come. Right, Google? It will, won’t it? Won’t it?
Stop. Collaborate and listen. Google Wave is a brand new invention.
Ok, stupid I know.
♫ Ride, you gotta ride, you gotta ride ♫
♪ Ride this Wave ♪
♫ Ride, c’mon and ride ♫
I want to ride this Google Wave too :), as I’m a big Google Products fan hehe
I want one!!!! I want to try this service :-)
Seriously, Google Wave sounds like an excellent tool that could be used in almost any environment to become more collaborative – something that doesn’t come easily to any field at any level. This takes communication to a whole new level in both personal and professional areas. I work in a research field where this could be used by our collaborators (located across the country!!!) in order to elaborate our ideas in a much more useful way than current email allows us to do. Not to mention, editing papers in “real time” instead of having separate copies and having to merge them all into one mess of a document.
The key to creative collaboration is creative tools! If we didn’t have google, where would we be?
And, by the way, I’d love to be one of your new network of gWavers!
wow, there are never this many comments! i would LOVE a wave invite. if i get an invite then i’ll be more than happy to share another invite with a fellow GaS reader!
I will throw my virtual hat in the virtual ring for a virtual wave! I think Wave might be really amazing for writing collaborations I do and I already tried sending Google a request :( Too bad I can’t trade in my old Gmail invites!
I could write about how Google Wave would make my job easier as I’m coordinating a study involving programmers in Japan, a hardware manufacturer on the West coast, study subjects in the Midwest and a research team in the Northeast, but anyone who knows a little about Wave can imagine how it will make working with geographically dispersed parties far easier. What really excites me about Wave is the social aspect. I recently graduated from college and my friends and I have ended up scattered all over the place. I miss the moments where all of us would cram into a small dorm room and watch the new episode of whatever TV show we happened to be into at the time. Is Wave ever going to be like all those beer filled debates we had over Sopranos? Of course not. But I think it would be cool if we could not only wave (is that a verb?) about the latest episode of Mad Men as in real time it happens, but also all weigh on the discussion of how Betty Draper is like one of our friends who decided to stuff a fainting couch into his tiny New York apartment over the course of the following week as we try to avoid doing real work at our various underpaid jobs or studying at our overpriced grad schools. We could then invite the target of our ridicule to the wave and he could watch the replay of how what started as an analysis of the themes of family responsibilities vs. personal fantasies degenerated into simple mockery. To make up for the abuse of our friend I’d probably drop in an AccuWeather extension noting that this Sunday is going to be one of the last nice days of the year, a Google Map of my favorite rooftop bar and a Yes/No/Maybe to see who was interested in trekking down to my neck of the woods and grabbing some beers- first round’s on me.
That’s why I’d like a Wave invite.
Wave me in! I’m sure I can find a ton of interesting things for us to wave about. Plus, if I received an invite, I’d be doing my part to be a sexy geek. ;)
Jajaja. This is amazing…Kiltak…how long since you received this many messeges?
People are just amazing. Obviously tons of people read this blog, but few comment. Now that you offer a free invitation to test Wave, tons of messeges??
It’s not about wanting to have an invitation. It’s about DESERVING an invitation. I read [GAS] since the blogger times. I always comment. I bought the T-Shirt. I live in Argentina….do you know how long it will take Google to even notive me here?
As an absolut [GAS]oholic, I deserve my invite! (and if not, I can also beg!)
Holy crap. You guys are making it really hard to choose!!
Hello! I’m Vali, a graphic artist, foss and Google Lover!
Been waiting for something like Wave for years now; I recently started a NPO, we’re a small team of enthusiast developing 2 free open source cross platform 3d video games, part of http://www.FreezingMoon.org
You can see some of our artwork/3d assets/docuemntation there.
We really need Wave asap to ditch our IRC channel and BBpress board, bringing indie collaboration to a new level and building a better community in order to speed up development and create something even greater. I hope you can help us out, because we’re not just people wanting to try out Wave for the sake of it :) Cheers!
i’d love to be in your contact list :-D
in a world full of dorks, dare to be a geek
dm
Google Wave reminds me of The Wave (the German movie Die Welle). I find it ‘dangerous’ one vendor to control everything (even if it is supposed to be opensource). -Really need that invite:P
If I get an invite I’ll marry Google Wave and live happily ever after s2
If I get an invite, I’ll send some back to GAS readers :)
Please send me one!
Oh, btw, I’ll give you the invites back, just let me know the email addresses you wish to invite; so you’ll basically multiply your invites, think about it :)
Please,please, please, pretty, pretty please with several pounds of sugar on top, I’d like an invite!
I’ve got a boring weekend before me and tinkering with Wave would just be too awesome!
Please, Please, give me an invitation!
My girlfriend always tells me I’m addicted to Google services and it is true! I’m as desperate for an invitation. Come on, help to turn some of the most desired of my class in college =P
*Raises hand* Oh! Oh! Oh! Over here please!!
I really want to try Google Wave!
And don’t worry, I won’t feel lonely without contacts… I’m used to it, since, for example, no one I know uses twitter, so I have no followers and just post stuff that no one reads.
:)
If i get a google wave invite i will do anything my girfrend ask me for 1 MONTH, stuff like: parent visiting, shopping trip, ikea’s sundey, be nice to her frends children, sex slave, cookig. just EVERYTHING, she’s here and we made a deal.
Never seen the video about google wave before. Sounds like a web changing experience. Would love to see how they wrote the source of it and what javascript libraries were used.
Our winners have been selected, and invites have been sent. You should get confirmation within the next day or so (as mentioned, my invite took 10 hours to make it to my inbox!).
Congratulations to infostud (who made me lol with his typo), to protocollie for the most creative response, and to Brian for the poetic turn (I can always appreciate some good haiku!)
Thanks! I’ll be sure to wave to you. wakka, wakka, wakka!
Congratulations to the winners!
Congratulations to the winners!
If here’s somebody who has a remaining Google Wave invitation, my friends and me would be very happy to get one. We are students of computer science in Karlsruhe, Germany.
So, I still haven’t received my invite :[
Ditto. *is sad* Need us to send you addresses?
We’ve got the addresses, and they’ve been sent. Unfortunately it can take a few days for Google to send the invites :(
Thanks Natania! I can always appreciate a good haiku myself. I am loving google wave. I can’t wait until I can get some friends on there.
Hi there, anyone got a spare invite? Please share! ;)
Cheers!