WAVY GRAVY AN ADVENTURE IN GOOGLE WAVE
BY JOEL NIELSON
Every year introduces a new web application for the struggling Library 2.0 advocate to keep up with, and 2009 was no different with the premiere of Google Wave, Google's brand new communication platform. But just what exactly is Google Wave and what does it set out to do? The amount of copy written about the program is massive, but even now there is considerable difficulty finding a definitive answer. The program is still in the middle of a closed beta test, so for the millions unable to gain access to hands-on experience with the program the waters are murkier still. However, through strenuous searching, backbreaking groundwork and exploitation of powerful connections I obtained an invitation to test the program, and I am here to report my findings to you today. The magnificence of the knowledge I shall bestow upon you! Will you shiver away from the light, huddled and chained around your fire quivering at shadows on the wall? Or will you break those chains, grasp the light in the palm of your hand, then stand tall and shake the pillars of Heaven? *cough* Okay, yeah, I'm devolving into extreme hyperbole in a sad attempt to hide the fact that in spite of my hands-on experience I'm still just as lost as ever. But I do take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone. Seriously, the first message I always see from people new to service is "... Now what? What's the point of this?" The pre-release for Wave touts it as a merge between instant messaging software, collaborative wikis, social networking, and email. And when you open it for the first time... it looks just like an email application, only a lot less intuitive. It was only until I did some background research and heard one of the programmers describe it as "e-mail if e-mail were invented today" that the program was finally given some shape in my mind. See, a wave is like an e-mail. Except you can add and subtract people from the e-mail as you see fit. Oh, and instead of an endless train of CCs and Re:s that e-mail conversations between groups of people devolve into, there's one main e-mail that everybody reads. Replies to the e-mail are written on the e-mail and flippity flappity floo I'm not making sense anymore. That's what any human description of Google Wave boils down to, sadly, lips flapping in the wind trying to make a coherent sound.
AALT Technician Winter 2010
11