Media Outreach

I received a little surprise in my inbox on the last day of November. I don’t consider myself a computer nerd…but there’s been a little bit of talk about Google Wave lately that made me want to find out what it’s all about. Over a month ago I requested an invite to join Google Wave and finally on November 30th, I had the invite in my inbox. I politely accepted…now what?

I spent about a half hour looking at it over the weekend and trying to figure out how it works and what it can do. I watched the 8 minute “Google Wave in Action” video to learn more. It’s pretty interactive and while I haven’t figured out how I can find other Wave users, I enjoyed just messing around with the different apps.

I quickly learned that you can:

1. Share meeting notes and write meeting notes in real time
2. Play interactive games with other Wave users.
3. Use an app from Lonely Planet or Google maps to create an itinerary for a trip and share it with your fellow travelers.
4. Chat in real-time video with other Wave users
5. Share and add photos with other Wave users
6. Drag and drop documents from your desktop to a Wave

So, what is a Wave? It’s a single document that allows for two-way communication from anyone assigned to the particular wave. As it’s explained in the video, a wave is different than an email because when you send an email everyone gets a copy of the message, where as a wave is a hosted conversation that allows anyone to contribute to it simultaneously…in real time.

If you’re using Google Wave, please share your tips and tricks or things you like or don’t like about it.

I have 5 invites for Google Wave. If you would like one, leave a comment with your e-mail address and I’ll send one to you.

Photo By: Musee McCord Museum