Things have been pretty quiet around here. I've been away on annual leave and unfortunately Wonga World has been neglected slightly.
Anyway, I'm back now and raring to go.
One thing that happened while i was abroad was the preview launch of Google Wave. Google sent out 100,000 invites to allow a lucky few to access and play with a preview version of their new tool. I was very very lucky to be one of those who received an invite.
My first impressions are that it's a preview version, not even a beta I'd say. So when things don't work, its not because of a failing of a tool, just that its still pretty buggy. This wont last.
i have a few colleagues who had been invited to the preview too, so our first play was a collaborative conversation. We didn't do a huge amount other than use it as a fancy IM, where we talked to each other in parallel rather than the linear method all other IM's allow.
Being able to edit each others notes and comments is good, and I can see that this will be very useful if (when) its possible to edit documents with others.
Another feature of Wave is the ability to add any existing Google gadget into a Wave. With the tens of thousands of iGoogle gadgets available there's pretty much something for everyone. Additionally, Wave has its very own API that allows developers to create Wave specific extensions.
There are only a small amount of Wave specific extensions available in the preview, however it wont be long until there are many many more.
My favourite so far is the Maps extension, that allows Wave participants to collaboratively create a map, share directions, identify key landmarks on a Google map.
There's many more uses for Wave that I'm sure i haven't stumbled upon yet. I'm really looking forward to it opening up to the wider audience. It's a great tool, with a lot of potential. It also has a novelty factor (many users are selling invites to Wave on ebay. With some going for in excess of £10 each) just now, however this will grow to be an extremely well used and functional tool.
Like iGoogle, the open API will mean that expansion of the tool will be almost limitless too.
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