When you first log into Google Wave, you may wonder, what do I do next? For one thing, notice on the lower left side of your screen, any Gmail contacts you had before who have Wave accounts will already appear in the Contacts section. If they are online, they will have a green dot, the online indicator. Once you get started Waving, you will be able to drag contacts into waves any time you like. Note – you can not drag them back OUT of waves, so be sure you really want them in that conversation before you add them. You can always copy a wave and re-invite the people you do want though, in case you get desperate to lose someone.
If you want to get one of your online contacts’ attention, click on them and select the button to Ping them. That will open a message on their screen and they can respond to you.
If you want to check out public waves where anyone is welcome to join in, go to the search box and type with: public + any search terms you want to see. By typing with: public mbti I found a wave where people were talking about personality types. Notice there is a light purple buffer area where someone is typing, but we can watch her as she types. We can click to reply anytime we want, and lots of people can be replying and talking at the same time.
I would love to use Wave to collaborate at work someday too, and maybe by the time Wave is more widespread we will all be able to do that. There is a great Help area of Google if you want to know how to do various things like make your wave public, or do something more fancy with a wave. Meanwhile just have fun and enjoy! I did not receive any Wave invites to give out – I was invited by a friend, but if you don’t have Wave yet, I hope you get it soon!
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Cool, I just got my Wave lately. Add me too jacob2lame@googlewave.com
.-= Jacob Yap´s last blog ..3 Google Wave Invitations Giveaway =-.
Jacob are you using it to collaborate with other students any? To me that would be so cool and such an easy way to share things.
Will do!
Ya just with few of them, because I don’t have much contacts in Wave now. I can’t wait for it to be launched officially, it simply change the way of communication. Hotmail and Window live Messenger will be the 1st victims haha.
Nice review Christie! Especially the public conversation trick as I have no idea about that. Still quite new and didn’t get much people in my list. Thanks for the free publicity. ^^
So far I’m too, agreeing this can be a nice tool for project collaborations. Although here we don’t have 140 characters restriction. Yay! Great seeing you on Wave. Talk to you soon.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..StumbleUpon Had A Makeover! =-.
Thanks so much Ching Ya! I think that if a group, whether for work or school or just people who want to talk about something, have their own wave, they can really enjoy. Everyone in the wave can see it all happening at the same time, and you can Replay if you get lost. I just hate one more reason to stay at the PC longer instead of doing my chores.
Ha.. I can absolutely understand that. I can see that coming already. That’s the life of the Gen Y, cheers!
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..3 Easy Ways to Share Selective Tweets on Facebook Pages =-.
It’s pretty cool, but still buggy – I don’t think it’s possible to delete waves just yet.
And I think the only way to find unread messages in a wave with hundreds of messages, is to click on the green badge in the inbox column (I think) then it will take you to each unread message, one at a time… so if there’s a lot, i guess it could take some time .. and they could probably be in various threads too.
I might just look at it the wrong way or don’t understand it completely, though
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..Membership Site: How Yaro Made $211,969 While Traveling Around The World =-.
Klaus you’re right – I did what they suggested to find the Delete button but there is none right now.
So far I’ve just gone by what’s bold as far as waves with unread content, and I haven’t bothered with too many threads, mainly the bottom of the whole waves, since I’m just a tourist for now. I’m just following two public waves, so it’s a bit easier right now, but yep I can see where this could get out of hand if it’s something you had to stay on top of and had a group of 50 people talking all at once in different places on a wave.
At my college we use a different tool for working on our projects online.
Its free and needs no installation since its online, go to http://www.showdocument.com
pretty useful for me since i usually do my projects on the laptop. -chrisman
Hi Chris – that looks like a great tool. Totally free – why is everyone not already using that for collaboration instead of waiting and doing without until they can get into Wave? Thanks for your comment and for letting us know about showdocument.com!
Not a user of Wave, but it’s something I may consider.
Welcome back!
.-= Frank J´s last blog ..U2 Live Concert on YouTube =-.
Hi Frank – Yeah I could easily see Wave being another reason I can’t get up from the computer, but on the other hand it’s a great way to collaborate with someone or a group. Everyone can talk at once if they want to, and of course you can Replay if you want to see the conversation unwind again.
Thanks!
Thanks to your screenshot, I’ve added ChingYa to my Google Wave lol. It is kinda lonely there – I’ve sent a few invitations to friends but they haven’t got them yet
.-= Michael Aulia´s last blog ..Microsoft Office 2010 Public Beta – Next month! =-.
Hi Michael, Shouldn’t take too long! My friend told me he had submitted my name for an invite, and then just two or three days later I had it.
That’s weird, because I sent 3 invitations to my friends and it’s been almost 2-3 weeks
They haven’t got the invitations yet… I guess it’s random (and yes they are on Google account/Gmail address)
.-= Michael Aulia´s last blog ..Nuffnang Awards 2009 at Pan Pacific Hotel =-.
Michael,
I’ve been through the wait myself before getting invited too, think it’s more than 1 week ++ . (Christie you’re so lucky! ^^ ) Hope your friends got it soon. I don’t have your wave account yet so if you’re in there, do give me a shout. ^^
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..3 Easy Ways to Share Selective Tweets on Facebook Pages =-.
Can;t wait for google wave to get out. Looks like a neat program by google. Thanks for this post.
.-= Make Money Blogging Online´s last blog ..Blogging – A New Way to Market =-.
Yes it will be lots of fun when everyone has it. Should be an IM killer as far as I’m concerned. I do wish they hadn’t gotten the Online Now! indicator though.
Looks like a fun and interesting way to connect with others. I sent my request for this when you first posted about this. Have not yet received confirmation or approval, but keep my mind open to anything.
.-= Ana´s last blog ..Alive and Kicking =-.
Hope you get your invite soon Ana! I think you’ll enjoy it. There are a lot of waves of various topics, and you can jump into any public wave or create a private one to talk to your contact(s) as you wish.
Going through my feed reader today this is like the 10th article about Wave so far today, I really need to look into it and see if I have any use for it.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Best Tanning Salon in Florida =-.
Heck yeah, I’ll bet you’ll enjoy it, and you’d probably have the only or first wave with tanning and limos!
I am still waiting for an invitation to join this great party
.-= Hesham´s last blog ..Famous Bloggers are Driving Me Crazy! =-.
Google wave is still a mystery for me. Lol. I don’t have any invitation or account. Let’s hope that it will be available to public soon.
.-= Ricky ´s last blog ..New Wordpress Theme-Right Sidebar With 3 Column Footer =-.
This looks really cool, it’s one of the first times I’ve gotten to see what Wave actually even looks like. Still waiting for a chance to actually try it out but for now I’ll just rely on these screenshots and my imagination, lol
-Jason
I didn’t know about the with:public so thanks for showing me that. It is still confusing the whole wave thing. Any thing new it will be different. Thanks Greg Ellison
.-= Greg Ellison´s last blog ..Google Wave Application =-.
Wave me at gr8bloggerman@googlewave.com Looking forward to waving your and thanks for the tip! I was not knowing how to enter Public waves.
.-= Tech-Freak Stuff´s last blog ..5 Most Popular Myths regarding Alexa Rank =-.
i saw the 1 hr video of google wave..it was gr8 hope it would do well..
.-= neo´s last blog .. =-.
Where are your new posts? Is everything alright?
.-= Ricky´s last blog ..iPhone Got Hit By Worm Again-But This One Is More Serious =-.
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