I’ve been trying out Google Wave and the inevitable seems to have happened: I stumbled upon a Second Life Residents wave. There are also at least two waves for augmented reality people, you can read (a lot) more about that on UgoTrade. The AR people are researching how to use Wave in their AR projects.
My very first experiences as a complete wave noob: it’s fun to get involved in a “wave in progress”. You actually see the other participants type their messages, or share pics and documents (which as yet is not always a very smooth process). If you miss the action you can always play the proceedings back.
It’s very easy and straightforward to invite in others, anyway I felt much more inclined to do so than in an email conversation or even a Skype conversation. I think Wave will be very interesting for collaborative projects. It’s a tool which really shouts “please collaborate! and do it right now!”
It’s like email, IM, wiki, forum and sharing platform all in one. I’m afraid it’s rather addictive! Bevan Whitfield called it “Plurk on crack”.
I guess the Second Life Residents wave is just the beginning: new waves will emerge for specific projects and virtual communities. Contrary to email there will be a tendency to invite others in or to keep waves open for the public so that everyone can join freely.
I can imagine that very techie virtual worlds waves will develop, for instance about how to integrate wave with virtual worlds. Other waves will be more about ideas, for instance how to use waves to build communities, and for discovering in what waves are different as compared to other social media, stuff like that.
There is a general Google Wave Directory in the making. You can find me as legrandroland@googlewave.com. Unfortunately I’ve not invites to distribute, but if you want in, chances are you’ll get help on Twitter for instance.
Don’t forget Google Wave is in preview. It has all the charms of a developing project, but of course some features are lacking like a system to manage access levels to a wave (which is crucial to use a wave for wider community and media projects). Also, because you need to get an invitation to get in, most of your contacts probably cannot be reached – but that should only incite you to join Second Life Residents or the AR groups in order to meet people and experiment!
Roland Legrand