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  • Google Wave Lives On (In Another Dead Google Project)

    A team of Google engineers in Atlanta has been working on a collaborative code editor called Collide for the past year. Google pulled the plug on the project, and shut down its Atlanta engineering department, but the project will live on thanks to open sourcing efforts.

    Now former Googler Scott Blum posed to Google+ (Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted a link to the post today):

    Scott Blum

    Scott Blum4 days ago

    Many of you may already know that July 9th is my last day at Google. After nearly 7 years, Google decided to shut down its Atlanta engineering efforts. I start my next job on July 16th (but was asked not to say who I'll be working for until then).

    For the techie people: my last year at Google, many of us in Atlanta worked on a project that was ultimately cancelled, concurrent with the office shutdown. However, on this 4th of July, I'm happy to say that one of the things I'll be celebrating is that we were able to liberate portions of our last year of work as a new open source project. 

    It's called "Collide" (collaborative IDE), and is a web-based collaborative code editor. What we pushed out is extremely stripped down right now, but the most interesting tech stuff around collaborative editing is all there. Long term, we hope it will serve as a catalyst for improving the state of web-based IDEs.

    http://code.google.com/p/collide/

    collide
    Collaborative IDE 272    29 Powered by socialditto

    If you look at the documentation page for Collide, you’ll see that it uses Wave. Google Wave was an ambitious collaborative editing tool that Google also pulled the plug on, but also open sourced. It evolved into its current state: Apache Wave.

    While Google Wave may not have been a successful Google product, it’s nice to see that people are still getting some use out of it.

  • Pinterest Has a Graveyard for Failed Google Products

    Google, like any large company, has had its share of failed products and services. Just this week, Google has shut down some of its products, including Google Video, Google Mini, and iGoogle.

    With the beta culture still alive and well within Google, it’s also easy for half-baked concepts to make their way to a public beta release. Since Google products are always being experimented with and iterated on, many users of niche products can be left out in the cold when Google decides to abandon them. Take Google Wave, for example. Wave was touted as the service that would replace email, and combined Most of the good features of Wave have been rolled into Gmail and Google Drive, but, as a concept, Google Wave was a failure. When Wave was killed, many users who “got” it were sad to see it go

    Now, a Pinterest collection of all the services and products that have been killed off by Google has popped up on Pinterest. Dubbed the “Google Graveyard,” the software showcased in the collection shows just how a company as large and popular as Google can also sometimes fail. Of course, some of the products are also startups that Google has acquired, then unceremoniously killed off. Also, as some of the commenters to the Pins point out, many of the products have been rolled into other services. Google Video, for example, has had its collection combined with YouTube, and Google Patent Search is still available through a normal Google Search.

    Some of the highlights in the Google Graveyard are products that were released with much fanfare from Google. In addition to Google Video and Wave, Google Buzz and Google Desktop stand out as products Google had high hopes for. Buzz was Google’s failed attempt at a Twitter-like microblogging service, which ended up as a repository of tweets pushed from Twitter. Google Desktop was Google’s local indexing service and desktop search bar. Google claimed the move to more cloud-based storage was what made Desktop obsolete.

  • Google Wave Closes Today, Move Out While You Still Can

    Remember Google Wave, the company’s first attempt at social networking? It was really ambitious and the idea is still really awesome, but the majority of users really didn’t think so. While the company has learned from their mistakes to create the seemingly successful Google+, there are still some people who really cared about Google Wave.

    For those users, we first and foremost salute your dedication. As Google Wave enters its last day of existence, let’s look back on its birth and its more interesting features. We’ll also look at how you can move your existing Wave conversations off of Google and into the new Wave – Apache Wave.

    Google released Wave to quite a bit of excitement in 2009. Just like Google+, the initial launch of the product was an invitation only affair. Unlike Google+ though, people were desperate for an invitation because this was the first big push from Google for something unique in the social networking world.

    Even though Google did everything they could to save Wave and even opened the service to the general public in 2010, it wasn’t enough to save the service. Google announced that the Google Wave development was ending due to a lack of interest.

    Google shutting down Wave development wasn’t the end of the project though. A lot of people saw the untapped potential in Wave and began to build on its open source foundations. It’s now called Apache Wave after Google gave the application to the Apache Foundation. While it’s currently in incubation, interested developers can contribute to the Google Wave Protocol project here.

    That all leads up to today, the announced date for the death of Google’s version of Wave. The application has been sitting around on its death bed for two years, but Google is now content to let it go. You have until the end of the day to get your stuff off of the service using the .pdf export feature.

    Even though Google Wave never took off, it has influenced other technologies including the extremely useful real time collaboration feature found in Google Docs. The collaboration feature from Wave can also be found in the recently released Google Drive apps. So don’t think of Google Wave as dying, it’s just returning to the lifestream of Google to empower other products and applications.

    Were you a fan of Google Wave? Even though it’s been on death row for two years now, are you still going to miss it? Let us know in the comments.

  • When Does Google Wave Shut Down?

    Remember Google Wave? It’s been nearly two years since Google announced that it was shutting it down, but it’s still been around in some capacity. The technology is still live, on a read-only basis, at wave.google.com. I can still go there and see the (very few) conversations I’ve had there in the past – from 2009.

    Google has now sent the following email out to users (with a nice typo, saying “Google Wage” in the from line):

    Dear Wavers,

    More than a year ago we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. Back in November 2011, we shared the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. Google Wave is now in read-only mode. This is reminder that the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.

    If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.

    For more details, please see our help center.

    Yours sincerely,

    The Wave Team

    In late 2010, Google announced the open sourcing of Google Wave’s code, and the Apache Software Foundation introduced Apache Wave.

  • Google Shuts Down More Services

    Google Shuts Down More Services

    Google continues to trim down its product line as part of the company’s new “focus”. The Internet giant announced that it is closing down some more of them, and some functionalities of others.

    Google Wave. You may have already thought it was dead. The company announced that it would no longer develop for it over a year ago. Starting January 31, however, it will become read-only, and users won’t be able to create new waves any longer. Users will still be able to export individual waves, using PDF export until the service is turned off. Google notes that Apache Wave and Walkaround are still available. These are open source projects that utilize Wave’s technology.

    Knol is making a transition. Google’s Urs Hölzle explains, “We launched Knol in 2007 to help improve web content by enabling experts to collaborate on in-depth articles. In order to continue this work, we’ve been working with Solvitor and Crowd Favorite to create Annotum, an open-source scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress. Knol will work as usual until April 30, 2012, and you can download your knols to a file and/or migrate them to WordPress.com. From May 1 through October 1, 2012, knols will no longer be viewable, but can be downloaded and exported. After that time, Knol content will no longer be accessible.”

    WordPress.com’s Ryan Markel writes:

    Starting today, those same authors can move their articles and collaborative journals to WordPress—and they have the power to choose whether to move to a self-hosted WordPress installation powered by the freely-available, open-source Annotum themes, or to have their Annotum-powered site hosted for free here on WordPress.com. Knol will slowly shut down over the next year, and we’ve worked closely with Google, Solvitor LLC, and Crowd Favorite to make this transition as simple as possible.

    We here at WordPress.com are thrilled to provide an easy, fast way for Knol authors to move to their new homes without the need for configuring their own installation. And WordPress.com users who would like to start new sites powered by the Annotum platform can activate one of the two new Annotum-enabled themes on new blogs and get started right away. It’s yet another way the WordPress platform and WordPress.com are enabling the democratization of publishing and sharing of information with the world.

    Google Bookmarks Lists will end on December 19. Bookmarks within the lists will be retained and labeled.

    Google Friend Connect is being retired on March 1. Google wants people to use Google+ instead. Makes sense.

    Google Gears-based Calendars and Gmail will no longer be supported at the beginning of December, and then later in December, Gears will no longer be available for download.

    The Google Search Timeline is going away. “We’re removing this graph of historical results for a query. Users will be able to restrict any search to particular time periods using the refinement tools on the left-hand side of the search page,” says Hölzle.

    Finally, Google has closed its efforts on the “Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal” project. It says other institutions are in a better position than Google to take on the research, but Google has published its results, and continues to invest in renewable energy.

  • Google Refreshes Google Docs Presentations, Adds 50 New Features

    Google Refreshes Google Docs Presentations, Adds 50 New Features

    Google announced a major refresh of Presentations in Google Docs, adding 50 new features, including transitions, animations, new themes, drawings, and rich tables.

    “A year and a half ago, we released completely new document, spreadsheet and drawing editors. Google Docs has been picking up speed ever since with more than 60 new features and millions of new users,” says software engineer Steven Saviano on the official Google Blog. “Today we’re rounding out the suite by previewing a new version of presentations with faster collaboration and more features.”

    “Presentations are made to be shared—whether it’s presenting your thesis to your professors or inspiring colleagues at a conference,” he adds. “And the best presentations are made together, collaborating with others to build a compelling story that captivates your audience.”

    With the new version, presentations can be created by more than one person simultaneously, and you can see exactly what others are working on with “presence markers”. Teams can edit simultaneously, and there is a revision history feature so you can see who made changes or revert to earlier versions. There is also a built-in chat feature. Are we seeing some Google Wave creep in here?

    Google says it’s gradually rolling out the new version of Presentations, but you can use it now if you go to Document Settings, click the editing tab, and check the box next to “Create new presentations using the latest version of the presentation editor.”

    Google says you’ll need a “modern browser” if you want to be able to edit with the new version.

    Google also says more collaboration features are on the way.

  • Google Has a New Social Experiment

    Google Has a New Social Experiment

    Update 2: Google has now officially announced Shared Spaces, saying: 

    A bunch of us who had been working on the Wave APIs were brainstorming about what it would take to just run a Wave gadget. Developers had been doing wonderful stuff –building real-time mini applications–and rather than let that effort go to waste, we wanted to create a new way for people to continue to use these tools and games. Google Shared Spaces is exactly that. A shared space turns a (Wave) gadget into a standalone collaborative application. Just click on the gadget you’re interested in to start a new shared space, and then simply send the URL around to share it with your friends and colleagues. You don’t need to sign up for a new service – if you have a Google, Twitter or Yahoo account, you’re good to go.

    Each shared space comes with a chat area (which is just another Wave gadget) for extra interaction. So take Shared Spaces for a spin: Use the Waffle gadget to pick the date for a night out with your friends, annotate a shared map with your favorite places and vote on where to go usingany of the polling gadgets. Or if you’d rather stay in, hit the games section and challenge somebody for a good old game of chess. To learn more, check out the quick presentation on our about page.

    Update: The site is now up and running. If you go there, you will see a list of gadgets, and you can sign in using your Google account, Twitter, or Yahoo account. Each one has a chat feature. 

    Original Article: A new experiment has appeared in Google Labs. It’s called Google Shared Spaces. 

    It’s hard to provide too much info about it at this point, because when you try to access it (after signing in with your Google account, which it requests) it only gives you a 404. Several people commenting on the site indicate that they are experiencing the same problem. 

    Shared Spaces appears to take advantage of some of the technology behind Google Wave. Here’s the description Google provides:

    Google Shared Spaces allows you to easily create a space with a collaborative gadget and a chat box in it. The gadgets are based on the Wave gadgets technology, so there are already more than 50 gadgets across different categories, like games, productivity, and event planning. Anybody can create a new space by going to the gallery and clicking on one of the featured gadgets. Spaces can easily be shared by just pasting the URL into a chat window, an email or a content sharing platform like Google Buzz or Twitter. And if you know a little Javascript, it is easy to get started building your own real-time, collaborative gadgets and create new spaces based on those.

    Google Shared Spaces

    At this point in time, that’s about all we have to go on, but more information will no doubt be revealed soon enough.

    It sounds pretty social, so it could end up being tied to Google’s larger social media strategy, which may include a toolbar that appears across various Google services. 

    Either way, it’s in Google Labs, so it may or may not ever become a full fledged service. Some of these go on to become popular Google products though.

     

  • Google Wave Lives on as Apache Wave

    Earlier this year Google made an unexpected move when it announced it would shut down Google Wave as a standalone product. Since then, despite a lack of mainstream use, it has become clear that Google Wave has a loyal fan base, and Google has made efforts to open source much of the code behind Wave. 

    Wave lives on to an even greater extent now, as Google is giving it to the Apache Software Foundation, which supports open-source software projects. 

    "One of the best outcomes from November’s Wave Protocol Summit was a proposal for Wave to enter the Apache Software Foundation’s incubator program," explains software engineer Alex North with the Google Wave team. "Apache has a fantastic reputation for fostering healthy open source communities that create great software. Last week, that proposal was accepted, and we’re spinning up the project infrastructure so that the community can continue to grow in the Apache way."

    "During the summit, it became quite clear that there is a healthy community of startups, independent developers, and industry partners enthusiastic to continue development of the Wave Federation protocols and Wave in a Box product," adds North. 

    It did indeed become clear after Google’s initial announcement that it would be halting Wave development that there were quite a few saddened by the news. Many as it turned out viewed Wave as a helpful realtime collaboration tool. They should be happy with today’s news that a broader open source community will likely bring good things to Wave’s technology. 

    The creator of Google Wave recently left Google to go to Facebook. Google had previously suggested that it may utilize some of the technology behind the product in other products. 

    The chain of events has been quite interesting considering Google’s heightened emphasis on social and the very social nature of Wave.

  • Google Open Sources More of Wave So Developers Can Take Advantage

    Google has given an update on its immediate plans for Google Wave. As you probably know, the company recently announced that it would be shutting down Google Wave as a standalone product, thought Google said it would preserve the technology behind Wave for future use and integration with other Google products.

    Google announced that it will expand upon the 200,000 lines of code that it has open sourced already, to "flesh out the existing example Wave server and web client into a more complete applicatino or ‘Wave in a Box’".

    Google Wave - Around just a bit longerThe project will include:

    • an application bundle including a server and web client supporting real-time collaboration using the same structured conversations as the Google Wave system
    • a fast and fully-featured wave panel in the web client with complete support for threaded conversations
    • a persistent wave store and search implementation for the server (building on contributed patches to implement a MongoDB store)
    • refinements to the client-server protocols
    • gadget, robot and data API support
    • support for importing wave data from wave.google.com
    • the ability to federate across other Wave in a Box instances, with some additional configuration

    Google stresses that the project won’t have full Google Wave functionality, but it will give developers and users a way to run Wave servers and host waves on their own hardware. This should please some IT departments.

    It still remains to be seen what other Google products Wave technology will appear in.

  • Google Wave Around Until the End of the Year

    Google recently announced that it would be shutting down Google Wave, at least as a standalone project. The company has now released an update on that note.

    Wave.google.com will be available at least through the end of the year, the company says. In addition to that, users will be offered ways to export their Waves. This falls in line with Google’s Data Liberation Front efforts, allowing users to take their data from Google services away for use in other places.

    "Some of you may have seen a post on the official Google blog several weeks ago about some changes to the Wave project, and we wanted to let you know that since then we’ve been hard at work figuring out all the details of the next steps," says Google Wave’s Lars Rasmussen. "We’re looking at ways to continue and extend Wave technology in other Google products, open sourcing more of our code and providing support for our loyal users and Apps customers."

    Google Wave - Around just a bit longer"Thank you for your outpouring of support and kind comments," says Rasmussen. "We’re grateful to all the people who have been using Wave and the partners and developers who have built on and improved the technology with us. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the coming weeks."

    While Wave never really caught on among the mainstream, its hard to say if it wouldn’t have eventually. Google likely hopes it still will, just as an added feature to other Google products in the future (perhaps Gmail? Google Me?).

    While there seemed to be a general lack of Wave enthusiasm between its launch and the announcement of its winding down, there have been a great many comments expressing sadness over its pending demise. There has even been a "Save Google Wave" site set up. More Google Wave discussion here.

  • “Save Google Wave” Site Forms

    “Save Google Wave” Site Forms

    In the official blog post announcing the discontinuation of Google Wave, a Google exec claimed that the service had earned "numerous loyal fans."  Now, in an effort to save Google Wave, they’ve banded together and created a special site.

    The "Save Google Wave!" site can be found, appropriately enough, at SaveGoogleWave.com.  It offers visitors the chance to express their support by giving the cause a virtual thumbs up, and a little over 20,500 individuals have done so to date.

    There are other mechanisms in place for supporting Google Wave and spreading the word, too, with a Twitter account up and running and "Digg This Site" and "Email Your Friends" options in place.

    Finally, there’s an interesting section of testimonials on the site, where a theoretical physicist, a software developer, and a teacher (among others) wrote about the value of Google Wave and how it should be saved.

    This may not change Google’s mind; it’s hard to imagine that a company with a market cap of almost $160 billion will flip-flop because 21,000 people clicked a button.

    Still, the "Save Google Wave!" campaign could at least convince Google to integrate elements of Wave into other products sooner rather than later.  (And perhaps to do a better job of explaining and promoting the tech the second time around.)

    A hat tip goes to Alex Williams, in any event.

  • Google Wave – Ahead of its Time or Just Another Failure?

    Google Wave may be going away, but it is highly unlikely that the web has felt its presence for the last time. As Google said in its announcement, the company will "extend the technology for use in other Google projects."

    Were you able to find a reason to use Google Wave?     Tell us about it.

    It will be interesting to see if the technology still goes by the name "Wave", but I have little doubt that some of the innovations we’ve seen in Wave will be popping up in various Google offerings in the form of new products and new features to existing products.

    Google’s aim with Wave was to replace email. That didn’t happen, and frankly, I have a hard time believing that too many people bought into that one, but that didn’t change the fact that Wave did some interesting things. One only had to watch a demo or two from someone who knew what they were doing to see its potential.

    The question is where will Wave fit into the Google universe if not as its own product? Gmail? If replacing email was the plan, it would make sense that some Wave-like features appear in Gmail, especially given Google’s penchant for adding features (and labs experiments) to it.

    How about "Google Me"? It’s still unclear what Google is up to with this rumored social media project that everyone has been considering the company’s move to rival Facebook, despite no announcments from Google or any real evidence.  Wave certainly has social (not to mention realtime) elements that could factor into a broader social networking plan.

    Here are a few significant moves by Google that may also contribute:

    – Google is getting into gaming. Besides a reported investment in Zynga and talks with Playdom and Playfish, the company has reportedly agreed to acquire game company Slide.

    – All YouTube users will be required to have a Google account

    – Google is letting users sign into multiple accounts at the same time from the same browser. This could be big for businesses wanting control over multiple accounts more conveniently.

    – One of the biggest trends in social media right now is that of checking in. Well, Google is focusing on that too with its Google Places API.

    Of the company’s social media plans (apparently being run now by Vic Gundotra), Eric Schmidt says that Google isn’t looking to create another Facebook. "Facebook versus Google…We’re not trying to do what Facebook does. The world does not need another Facebook," he is quoted as saying.

    Well, some privacy advocates may disagree with that (though Google’s reputation for privacy doesn’t exactly have the best track record). Either way, regardless of how Google pitches whatever strategy it has (not another Facebook), the fact remains that Facebook is eating up much of consumers’ time online, and that is no doubt time that Google would prefer be spent with their properties. So from that standpoint, Google vs. Facebook is very real. It’s about mind share, and ultimately about advertising. If Facebook ever uses the Open Graph to build its own AdSense-like network, then it will really be real.

    But back to Wave’s role in Google’s future. How about Chrome? Wave functionality from the browser? Chrome OS? Wider adoption could be more easily achieved from the browser or the operating system. Any of this could be tied to whatever "Google Me" turns out to be, as long as it is connected by a Google Account.

    People will call Wave a failure and stick it in the box of past Google social media failures, but Wave (or at least some of the concepts behind it) will be felt in the future.

    "We liked the (user interface) and we liked a lot of the new features in it (but) didn’t get enough traction, so we are taking those technologies and applying them to new technologies that are not announced," CNET quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying. "We’ll get the benefit of Google Wave but it won’t be as a separate product."

    Is it just me or does Google seem to be pulling the plug on Wave a little early? Could they already have a specific new strategy in mind for it that they’re already moving forward on?

    What do you think about Google Wave? Sad to see it go or good riddance? Share your thoughts.

  • Google Sets Forum-Like Goals For Wave

    Google Sets Forum-Like Goals For Wave

    Google Wave may soon make some significant strides towards winning over people who don’t see the need for a new form of communication.  This week, Google semi-officially endorsed an open source project that would see Wave imitate several aspects of traditional online forums.

    David Crane, the founder of Debatewise, is the developer behind the push, and he was asked to write about it on the Google Wave Developer Blog.  Crane argued, "A forum could be a killer app for Wave.  It’s a tool that people already use in huge numbers for specific purposes, are used to keeping separate to their email, and will dip in and out of as required."

    Crane then continued, "Wave is similar enough for them to jump in quickly and different enough for them to get, and be hooked by, the benefits. . . .  Wave could enhance and improve upon some of the most important features of a forum and through acclimatisation, will encourage them to use it for a world of other purposes."

    So Crane – and/or Google – is looking for developers to help realize three goals.  First, he’d like to see a way of grouping waves around subject matters.  The second objective is to encourage participation using things like karma levels and trophies.  Finally, he’s interested in implementing trust mechanisms to distinguish between helpful and useless individuals.

    It should be interesting to see how this project progresses.  Google Wave still doesn’t seem to have found an audience in its original form, so perhaps Google will lend Crane some additional support in order to speed up the process.

  • Google Launches Tools to Get People Using Wave More

    Google has launched a new set of tools to increase user interaction with Google Wave. Among the tools are a "WaveThis" button, a "WaveThis" bookmarket and a chrome extension.

    Google Wave was introduced last year, and a lot of hype was built up around it. Very few people actually had access to it for a while, but eventually more and more people got invites, but many were still unsure of what to do with the service once they did have access. At Google I/O last month, Google announced that  Wave was available to all, and that it is now part of Google Apps.

    Ars Technica has an interesting interview with Wave developer Lars Rasmussen, who talks about the ways people have been using Wave, and how the availability to more people (including devleopers) will open up greater possibility for the service.

    Perhaps getting these new tools out there will help in getting Wave more exposure and increased usage as well. Until now, if you wanted to share information from the web with Wave, you would have to go the copy and paste route, as Douwe Osinga of the Google Wave Team mentions, but now you can use these tools to do so.

    WaveThis Button on Google's BlogThe WaveThis button lets visitors to a site share content to a Wave. "It’s less public than broadcast tools and more interactive than using email," says Osinga. When a user clicks the button, it copies the title and URL into a new Wave, and the user and their friends can start discussing it.

    For Wave users who want to do the same with content that does not have a WaveThis button, the WaveThis bookmarket and Chrome extension let them do the same.

    Webmasters can create URLs that, if followed, automatically create new waves with specific titles and content. "Now, a wave wouldn’t be a wave if all you could do was copy over some plain old text," says Osinga. "Websites that want to incorporate some interactivity into the resulting waves can specify a helper gadget."

    These tools are all available as a result of the WaveThis API. More information about implementation can be found here.

  • Google Wave Turns One

    Google Wave Turns One

    Exactly one year ago today, a product that was supposed to represent a new and innovative means of communication debuted at Google I/O.  Now, Google’s celebrating Wave’s first birthday by trying to convince a few more people to give the tech a chance.

    Google WaveThat observation isn’t necessarily meant to slight Google Wave or the team behind it; almost any time a company chooses to commemorate something, one purpose must be to attract new users (and/or reengage old ones).  It’s just that an official blog post concerning Wave’s birthday focused more on promoting it than distributing stickers or some other nonsense.

    Anna-Christina Douglas, a product marketing manager at Google, appealed to ordinary individuals by writing, "[T]he ways I use Wave aren’t revolutionary or groundbreaking – I communicate about everyday things, but it is these incredibly ordinary and important communications that are transformed in unexpected ways when you use Wave."

    She later added, "I’ve been struck by the really personal nature of communicating and working together in Wave, and the emotional response people have to their first uniquely wavey experience, what we call the ‘Wave a-ha moment.’ . . .  You really do have to try it to believe it, though – so if you checked out Google Wave six months ago and found yourself at a bit of a loss, take another look."

    Happy first birthday to Google Wave, then, and here’s hoping the rest of you have a good Memorial Day weekend.

  • Google Wave Released To Everyone

    Google Wave Released To Everyone

    When Google Wave invitations first went out, they were hugely popular, with requests appearing left and right and bids topping $5,000 in one eBay auction.  Now, perhaps with the hope of creating a second surge of excitement, Google’s done away with the invitation system, opening Google Wave up to everyone (including Google Apps users).

    Obviously, the overall situation’s changed in a couple ways since last October; a lot of people have tried Wave and decided they don’t care for it, and Twitter, which might be considered a competitor of sorts, has become a more firmly entrenched part of everyday life.

    Still, Google’s trying hard to win over skeptics.  Lars Rasmussen, who’s considered a cofounder of the Google Wave effort, was on hand at Google IO to break the availability news in front of a large audience.

    Also, Stephanie Hannon, a product manager, wrote on the Google Wave Blog, "If you tried Google Wave out a while ago, and found it not quite ready for real use, now is a good time to come back for a second try.  Wave is much faster and much more stable than when we began the preview, and we have worked hard to make Wave easier to use."

    (Hannon then specified, if you’re curious, "For example, you can now get email notifications when waves change, easily navigate to unread parts of a wave, and remove participants added by mistake.  We have also added permission management options and an extensions gallery.")

    So we’ll see what happens next.  And one key point, whether or not Google Wave is successful at finding a sizable user base this time around, is that the product remains a part of Google Labs, so additional changes and refinements may be on the way.

  • “Remove Participant” Option Comes To Google Wave

    What is by Google’s own admission a "glaringly obvious" missing feature has been added to Google Wave.  Now, it’s possible for participants to be removed (or remove themselves) from waves, potentially saving people all sorts of time or embarrassment.

    Add someone to a wave by accident?  Find out a friend can’t attend the event you’re trying to discuss?  This update addresses the fact that you still would have wound up bothering these folks with all sorts of irrelevant messages.

    It has another interesting quirk, too.  Dhanji R. Prasanna, a software engineer, wrote on the Google Wave Blog (using an amusing Mexican wrestler message as an example), "Imagine this: after a rough day at work, you spend the night out with friends and return home to write a less-than-flattering message to, say, your boss."

    He then hit the important part: "With a wave . . . you simply remove your boss as a participant, and when she wakes up at 7am to check her messages, the wave is gone from her inbox.  As long as she didn’t open the wave before you removed her, she will never see it."

    These upgrades could help increase Google Wave’s popularity by a significant amount.  And further major modifications may be on the way, as well, considering that Prasanna actually characterized the removal option as "one of the more glaringly obvious missing features."

  • Google Gives Wave Another Push With Extensions Gallery

    Google Wave didn’t do so well when it came out of the gate, and Buzz’s privacy problems stole all of the attention not too long after.  But now that Google’s addressed most of Buzz’s faults, it’s trying to move forward again by rolling out an extensions gallery for Google Wave.

    Interestingly, this initial version is still a little rough around the edges in terms of functionality.  Also, there are just 18 extensions listed at the moment, and Google’s suggested design tweaks are on the way.  We’ll let you decide whether the company’s gotten ahead of itself or made a smart move by involving developers and users as soon as possible.

    As for what’s available, the extensions represent an interesting mix of useful and fun/frivolous stuff.  One’s called Wave Sudoku, while others function as poll gadgets, phone and video chat aids, and a weather forecast provider.

    Anyway, Dan Peterson, Google Wave’s Product Manager, explained on the Google Wave Developer Blog, "The gallery is simply a set of waves containing extension installers (the puzzle pieces).  The first wave, ‘Read me first‘ contains an introduction to extensions and how to use them.  In many cases, those particular waves won’t maintain their read/unread status in Google Wave preview; we’re working on this."

    It should be interesting to see how long Google takes to make its tweaks, and how quickly the extensions gallery is populated.

  • Google Wave Finds Fans At Clear Channel

    Love it or hate it, Clear Channel Radio is pretty much inescapable; the organization claims to have a weekly audience of 110 million listeners, which represents about one-third of America’s population.  It could be quite important, then, that some people who work for the omnipresent radio entity have taken a liking to Google Wave.

    Dennis Elliott, a Web manager at Clear Channel, in fact reached out to Google with some compliments, and his message wound up being posted on the Google Wave Blog.  Elliot began, "Just wanted to tell you guys that we are loving the wave here at Clear Channel Radio in Greensboro NC where we have 5 FM radio stations."

    Then here’s another key point: "We have just started using it and only have a small number of our staff on it right now, but we plan on expanding it to everyone as soon as possible."

    From there, Google Wave could make its way up (and back down) the corporate ladder, coming into use at radio stations all over the country.  Or at the least, radio personalities in North Carolina might start discussing it while on the air, causing a lot of their listeners to give the real-time communication tool a shot.

    Of course, it would be rather ironic if old-fashioned radio is what helps Google’s newfangled means of communication really catch on.