Google Wave: A Beginner's Guide

Google wave is a new piece of technology that may revolutionize how we communicate on the internet. The easiest way to think of a wave is to think of an email. One that is always open to be changed by everyone on the email list. It is also able to put anything you want to upload into an email accessible without having to mess with attachments. A Wave can be edited, shared, sorted, more efficiently than email. One reason for this is that everything happens in real time. Since it is new, it can be confusing as well. There are several features that have are very different from anything you've ever used email for. Among these are gadgets and robots.

I am not a computer programmer; I am an average Joe with an invite. So, come on this journey with me and we will soon be waving with the best of them.

A note about invites:

Currently the only access to Google wave is through invites. I am good friends with a computer programmer and have received an invite through that connection. I am not a computer programmer. I need to be walked through the paces of how to get technology to do what I want it to do. Invites to Google Wave will be sent out weekly and eventually, like with Google's gmail, it will be open for free registration. When a friend sends an invite code for Google Wave it can take a while for the invite to actually reach you. Try to be patient. It also is in beta right now. Beta means that Google Wave is not operating like it will when it is completely released to the public. There are some kinks that Google still needs to work out but having people play with Wave is a great way for those kinks and bugs to be found. So, if you don't get an invite right away, take heart in knowing that when you do get there it will be better.

For the visual learners:

Google released some videos to help users understand Google Wave. The long video is 80 minutes and was presented to a bunch of programmers so that they could make additional features to go with Wave. It has a lot of detail that you may or may not be interested in, but it also gives practical examples of how Google Wave works. I really enjoyed it. The short video is 10 minutes and quickly runs through what Google Wave can do for you. Both videos give you visual examples of waves, gadgets, and robots.

Step-by-step Guide:

Now for the guide. Google Wave is such a diverse and robust feature that there are many ways to get started. These are my recommendations average Joe to average Joe. By going through step-by-step you will gain some experience to then venture out on your own. We will be covering the basics and dabbling into the use of gadgets and robots.

Step 1: Get some friends

It goes without saying that in order to communicate with wave you need to have people to communicate with. Unlike Facebook, there is no efficient way yet to find the people you are looking for. One good aspect of this feature is that you will probably not get spammed as much. On the down side it is hard to find your friends. So utilize all your social networks to find the wave users in your social group to add. At the very least, get the Google login for the friend who invited you.

Now, the bottom left window in Wave is the "Contacts" window. Simply click the + button and add the user's Google email address. You will want to repeat this process for each friend you are able to round up. Right now I have the friend who invited me and a couple of acquaintances I met through her. I think they are all computer programmers.

Step 2: Play with the basics

In this step you are going to get your footing. It is useful to have a "tester" wave whose purpose is for you to play around with wave features. When you log in, you should have 4 sections to your screen. The top left should be titled "Navigation" and underneath that is "Contacts". Just to the right of those boxes is your inbox, followed by an open space that has a link saying "New Wave." Click on this new wave.

In a new wave the first thing you want to do is give it a title. This will make it easier to find in your inbox. Since we are just playing around with this first wave, how about giving it a name like "Test Wave." You will notice that this shows up in bold. It is also now a wave in your inbox and uses the title you've just given it.

Next let's add your friend. It is not much fun to wave by yourself. At the top of your tester wave you should see a silhouette. That is you. You can change the picture later if you want but in the meantime notice that this is where the recipients of the wave are listed. Click on the "+" button and add your friend. Now they are in the wave too. Be aware that as soon as you add a friend, they can see the wave and everything you've put into the wave. They can also edit it while you are also editing the wave.

Type some text into the wave. When you are done, click the "Done" button. This looks similar to a forum or instant message post. Now you have some options for adding more text. First bring your mouse to the bottom edge of the post. This will turn into a blue bar that you can click. Do so and type a message. You will see that the message is directly below the last one.

Now, double click on the initial message. You will see two options come up. One is reply and the other is edit. Click on edit. Now you can edit what you had already typed. When your friend comes on and responds to your wave, double click on their response and choose edit. Now you are both co-authors of that response and you can change anything your friend wrote or write more, within their message. Pick a spot in a wave that you want to respond to and double click there. Now choose reply. You will see that a reply wave has opened up within the wave you were in. This means that you can have structure similar to that of forums. When you are finished with your reply, notice that there is a tiny "-" button. This will allow you to hide all the in-text responses to that message.

You might notice that almost half the screen is not enough space to type. This is especially true once you add gadgets. You can make the wave bigger by minimizing the inbox or other waves you have open or by maximizing the wave you are working on. You do this the same way you minimize and maximize browser or office windows using the buttons on the upper right hand corner. Right now, some of the editing buttons are not visible until the wave is expanded, so resize your wave to the larger size now.

With Google Wave you can drag and drop objects from your computer files directly into the wave. If you have pictures, open the file and place in front of the wave. Left click and hold as you drag a photo from the file into the wave.

Let's look at some buttons that come pre-installed for Google Wave. The first 3 should be familiar as bold, italics and underline. The 4th button is strike-through, which can be useful if you want to edit someone's wave but want people to easily see the content you are wishing to delete. The next 3 buttons allow you to change the size, style, and color of the wave's font. The 8th button is for highlighting text and the 9th allows you to use different heading styles similar to the options available in Microsoft Vista's Word. The last pre-installed text manipulating buttons edit how the text is organized. They are bullets, indenting, outdenting, and alignment respectively. Take a break and format some waves with these text-editing buttons.

The next button titled "link" is an easy way to add URLs to your wave. The paper clip is for adding attachments that are not currently supported by the drag-and-drop function or don't want to. The G button allows you to search Google right from your wave. You can then go to that content or you can just add it to the wave. Play around with this buttons. The remaining buttons will be discussed in the gadgets section.

Playback is a feature that allows you to see the history of your wave. You can find this function in your wave right underneath the list of people in the wave. Click on playback. You can then either click the next button to watch the wave unfold, or you can click and drag the bar to the part of the wave you want to look at.

Step 3: Install Extensions

Extensions come in two forms, gadgets and robots. Gadgets are objects that you can add to the wave and interact with. Robots are users who are computer programs. All the things that you can do in the basics section mentioned above can be done by a robot. After reading the sections on Gadgets and Robots, check out the list of extensions, add some of each, and play around with them.

Gadgets

Google wave comes with 2 gadgets pre-installed. To insert a gadget you need to have a wavelet open. You'll know that one is open because you can type and there is a toolbar at the top.

The Yes/No/Maybe gadget allows you to get a quick poll of the people in the wave. Let's say you are planning a party, you can put the details in a wave, host conversations about the party and the Yes/No/Maybe gadget can be used as an RSVP system. Members of the wave can also change their vote or RSVP at any time.

The other pre-installed Google Wave gadget inserts a Google Map. After you have inserted a map, you have to set the area. Use the Google search bar at the bottom of the map to get an initial map. You can then play around with the basic display using the buttons on the top right side of the map. The + and - buttons zoom in and out respectively. Map is the default setting. It displays the Terrain setting with the transportation infrastructure accentuated. Satellite shows the area as it really is when photographed from satellite. Hybrid takes that satellite image and overlays it with the transportation infrastructure. After you have the main map set up, you can add landmarks. Select the tool at the bottom of the map and click on the map to place the appropriate tool. The reverse tear drop places a landmark, the next tool allows you to draw lines, and the last tool allows you to draw lines that then shades the interior angles. These latter 2 tools allow you to emphasize territory in question.

In addition to the gadgets that come pre-installed you can also add other gadgets. I predict that gadgets will be coming out almost as prolifically as facebook or iphone applications. You can search for Google wave gadgets that may suit your needs. When you find a gadget that seems interesting and install it, a button will be added to your tool bar. Over time there may be other options for how these gadgets are managed. For now a lot of gadgets are not ready to be installed. An install-able gadget either looks like a puzzle piece with an "install" button, or has a URL that can be entered in your wave using the puzzle piece button to add a gadget.

Robots

In the videos linked above, the Google Wave team shows a couple robots. Tweety is a robot that interfaces with Twitter, the social networking tool. Rosy is a robot that translates text from one language to another. Bloggy helps you to publish your waves on your blog.

To add a robot you must add them as a contact. Their address information is usually in the description of the Robot somewhere. At this time it ends with @appspot.com.

Once you've made friends with the robots you want to use, you can add them to any wave. Just like you added your friend when you started talking to him/her, add a robot to a wave. Now when you interact with the wave, the robot will look for clues that it has been programed to look for to see what it should do.

The first and easiest robot I've found to use so far is Tweety. When you add Tweety to a wave you sign in to Twitter and then Tweety will tweet whatever you type.

For math geeks like me py-robot@appspot.com is going to be a lot of fun. While I haven't played around with it enough to get it working for me (or perhaps the bugs aren't worked out), it's purpose is to be a Wave Robot version of the Wolfram Alpha website.

Robots are probably the most buggy part of the system at this point. Remember it is still in preview. Some robots may be having problem with bandwidth limitations. Others may have come upon some bugs and are being worked on. Don't automatically assume that it is your fault that a Robot isn't working.

Step 4: Manage and Organize

When there is a lot of information, organization is key. I recommend making files and sorting your waves from the very beginning. Make files you think you will need, even before you need them. File waves immediately after they start. Waves can pile up quickly, and can become disorganized. If you are going to use Google Wave professionally, you are going to need to make sure none of your Waves get buried, and that everything gets responded to. Remember to check out the Gadgets and Robots from time to time to see if there are new tools to help with organization.

On the level of the individual wave, remember that you can edit other people's waves too. If you need to clean up a document and get rid of mindless chatter, you can. That information is still there via playback if someone really cares or needs it. You can also edit waves so that all the information gets aggregated. One example is a wave that my friends and I started for brainstorming ideas for future gadgets and robots to develop. Everyone is responding where they get the urge to do so. After we have looked at ideas, though, we can edit the first wavelet, (right under the title), to include all the messy brainstorming and conversation that is happening underneath.

Conclusion

You now have a fundamental understanding of Google Wave. It is a powerful piece of technology that has many uses and may become widespread. It has a learning curve however so a week of playing around with it will make a big difference in your ability to use Google Wave professionally and personally with confidence.

I am not an expert. I'm just sharing what I've learned at a time where most people are not taking the time to explain for the average person. If you have more information to make information I've provided here clearer or more precise, please leave a comment for future readers. Thanks.