A Collaboration WAVE From Google

Guys…

With the close of the year round the corner, it stills fresh as the first day of the year when we welcomed it. Time really flies… as many say and experience. I have decided to post an interesting article which I came across recently, and wanted to share it with you folks…

As we are aware of, Google has been developing some really cool tools and widgets like Google Docs, Google Maps with Latitude, Google Voice, Google Mail (of course), Google Groups and tons of other apps for the benefits of its user community. The next on course to be launched is what is called “GOOGLE WAVE”. Lets have a sneak peek into this in this article.

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Some key functionalities of wave are:

Organizing Events

Keep a single copy of ideas, suggested itinerary, menu and RSVPs, rather than using many different tools. Use gadgets to add weather, maps and more to the event.

Group Projects

Collaboratively work in real time to draft content, discuss and solicit feedback all in one place rather than sending email attachments and creating multiple copies that get out of sync.

Photo Sharing

Drag and drop photos from your desktop into a wave. Share with others. Use the slideshow viewer. Everyone on the wave can add their photos, too. It is easy to make a group photo album in Google Wave.

Meeting Notes

Prepare a meeting agenda together, share the burden of taking notes and record decisions so you all leave on the same page. Team members can follow the minutes in real time, or review the history using Playback.

Brainstorming

Bring lots of people into a wave to brainstorm – live concurrent editing makes the quantity of ideas grow quickly! It is easy to add rich content like videos, images, URLs or even links to other waves. Discuss and then work together to distill down to the good ideas.

Interactive Games

Add a gadget to a wave to play live interactive games with your friends (we’re hooked on Sudoku!). See everyone’s moves as they make them in a fast-paced game or take a break and come back later. 
Check out the featured extensions.

You can take a sneak peek of this wonderful product, to be launched sometime soon, in the you tube video below. 

Registration to this developer version is based on an invite. To request one to have a look at this and have a hands on the product, go to https://services.google.com/fb/forms/wavesignup/.

Expect a lot more interesting articles coming up in the following days and I hope the following year will definitely be a turn in the tide and fortunes of many who have had a tough year…

Happy holidays folks…

Until next post…