[Google Wave] OPEN TO ALL: invites no longer necessary!

Mr_Rose

So, Google Wave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ
What is it?
Above is a video of the Google IO developer conference preview of Google's latest project. The basic idea, on the face of it at least, is to integrate every communication system you've ever heard of on the web; e-mail, IM, BBS, blog, twitter, whatever. All integrated into a single user interface.

Now, this has been attempted before; various people have tried to integrate any number of chat protocols, you can e-mail to twitter and theoretically get an RSS back of the replies.

Wave is taking a slightly different approach; take the "conversation" concept from gmail and make it apply to everything. Then make it extensible with both client-side and server-side plug-ins that will allow two-way communication between multiple protocols and web-tools.

Google also have this to say for themselves.

The developer preview includes, thus far:

• Combined e-mail- and IM-like behaviour for typed text, with live per-character updating
• Branching structures for the above, allowing you to interrupt a conversation to add a comment, starting a new sub-conversation
• Drag-and-drop web-integration using Gears to add photos and other media
• Live, simultaneous collaborative editing of all of the above by al participants in a conversation (Wave).
• Two-way communication with a blog - comments added to an article get updated in the associated wave and vice-versa, all in realtime.
• Similar two-way comms for Twitter, bug reporting tools, etc.
• Dynamic addition of new participants
• Playback - step forward and back through entire conversations so that latecomers can catch up.
• Multi-language support including RTL and complex input (they show Chinese and Hebrew being added to a document simultaneously)
• Mobile support (everything mentioned so far, except for the gears-based drag and drop, is HTML 5.0 code in a browser)

Google hopes to add more later:

• Spreadsheet-type functionality
• Two-way integration between multiple waves for collaborative document production
• Anything else you can think of - the whole shebang will be Open Source.

So, have Google done it again? I think they just might; I for one am thoroughly impressed and already thinking of ways to incorporate a tool like this into my office. I can see the addition of language tools to create translations, text-to-speech and voice recognition extensions, and so on. With the kind of extensibility they've shown in the preview above, I would not be surprised to see this getting absorbed into video-games as a chat client, if a lightweight enough extension/robot can be made.
Then there's the location-aware stuff; like automatically creating an open wave that adds people using mobile devices within an arbitrary distance, 50ft, say? Basically, this is the back-end all those Augmented Reality front-ends have been waiting for, I think.

Anyway, I could go on, but I want to know what Penny Arcade thinks:
Has Google done it again?
What would you add to/integrate with Wave?
Are we finally about to start living in The Future (again, for the last time, for the first time)?

Further information can be found on the Wave developer blog, the development/API section of the site, and by signing up to receive more information here.

Since we are now getting invites in and out to peeps, I guess this is also now the Penny Arcade Wave Thread:

Captain Cactus And The Water Preservation Squad wrote: »

Ross Mills wrote: »

So why hasn't a PA Wave been created and put in the first post?! ^_^

There is a PA wave, but I don't know why it's not mentioned in the first post.

Anyway, if you have wave, just do a search for "with:public penny arcade" (in the inbox/search panel - you may need to delete the "in:inbox" that's there already) and that should bring up a couple of waves.

HOW I MINE FOR INVITES?!
OK, here's how it works:
It doesn't, not any more: As of a few minutes ago, wave.google.com has started handing out wave accounts to anyone that signs up/in. [strike]days ago, I have been getting way more invite donations that requests. Accordingly, I am assuming that no-one else really wants an invite and am shutting this thing down.
If you get into the beta, PM me with however many invites you want to share with the PA crew and you get your name put up in lights in the OP here (if you want; say so if not).
If you want an invite, PM me with the address you want an invite sent to (one address ONLY per applicant please) and you get your name up here too. I will then connect invites and invitees on a first-come, first served basis. If you get an invite this way, please give at least one back so we can continue the chain. Please also note that these are not instamatic g-mail a-like invites; they are manually collated and processed by actual humans at Google and therefore may take a while to get out - we have seen averages of 2-3 days, with some outliers of a week or more.[/strike]

WE NEED MORE HEROES!
If you have invites that aren't used, please consider donating one or more to the cause.
HEROES:
Xaviar, First Amongst Awesome (xaviar@googlewave.com)
Divebommah (eriksr@googlewave.com)
BobCesca (f.sapsford@googlewave.com)
peterdevore ()
Aoi (aoi976@googlewave.com)
Linden
Zetx
CKyle
undeinpirat (lemasterkeith@googlewave.com)
BobCesca
MKR (pithypundit@googlewave.com)
Rdr
Evander
tek
joshgotro
Taximes
Michael H
Cyvros
optimaltable
toxk_02
strebalicious
nhrn
mfc144
Dortmunder
Namrok
Timmer
Darmak
wunderbar
Mentis
Tinche
Flay

LUCKY GITZ:
Blaket (Mxx7000@googlemail.com)
cyphr (alandelong@googlewave.com)
PeasantDave (schrader.dave@googlewave.com)
Gdiguy
DeathPrawn
uean
Pirusu (pirusu@googlewave.com)
mantis23
VacuumJockey (vacuumjockey@googlewave.com)
Gandalf_the_Crazed
UEAKcrash
nerve
midgetspy
Darmak (darmakx99@googlewave.com)
Mike Danger (thisismikedanger@googlewave.com)
hotran (kpmulliga@googlewave.com)
Mr_Rose (c.john.f@googlewave.com)
Trenog (trenog@googlewave.com)
Shorn Scrotum Man (sojakfa@googlewave.com)
Vladimer (jwinegeart@googlewave.com)
ArcSyn (JonathanDBates@googlewave.com)
Evander (TheEvander@googlewave.com)

DEADBEATS:
There was a long-ass list here, but I can't be bothered to maintain it any more, plus it made the whole thing look silly. If you PM me your e-mail address, you are officially on the waiting list unless I specifically reject you for being totally uncool* or something. If you didn't send me an e-mail address, you aren't on the list at all.


*By which we mean "appear to have signed up for a PA forum account just cause you heard we were giving away wave passes somewhere."

Frem

I'm pretty sure we're looking at the climax of text-based internet communication. The protocol is open, the source is open, it'll gain traction by default because it's made by Google, and there's interoperability between waves. Additionally, it's flexible enough to be used for a variety of different purposes.

I could see a wave with an extension or two replacing a development mailing list, documentation source, and bug tracker for one big integrated whatzit.

I could also see a lot of people at my school hanging out on a wave instead of Facebook and using it for classes to collaborate on outlines and test prep. Pure comm and collab, without the stupid quiz apps.

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited. Though I wish they'd left more non-devs in before September. :-P

Dark Shroud

Meh.

Probad

I'm actually curious to see if this could be a feasible format for running a DnD game.

theantipop

I'm not terribly excited about this either (seems like a hassle unless you need to collaborate on something), but you can sign up to receive updates and be eligible to beta test starting in September.

Oh Probad, that's actually a really interesting thought.

Probad

Yeah, I think I read it on the forums here somewhere, but if you can get the right gadgetry on there, it could probably even work like a hybrid pbp / session game.

Marth

I'm excited for this, mostly for how it can change the way people use email. You can have a well-organized conversation with a group of people instead of looking at a column of emails.

Is this going to replace Gmail and Gchat?

Probad

I doubt it will outright replace them, at least at first, but it will be an interesting addition.

Mr_Rose

Probad wrote: »

Yeah, I think I read it on the forums here somewhere, but if you can get the right gadgetry on there, it could probably even work like a hybrid pbp / session game.

Yeah, the e-mail chess game they showed, with the playback of each move? All you'd need is a dice roller, pretty much.

@Marth: Maybe not for everyone, but I will definitely be dumping both in favour of this when it hits. Especially if there are extensions for other chat protocols so I can have a simultaneous conversation with three other people, all using different chat clients...

Aridhol

Just watched the full video, amazing.
It will replace my gchat/gmail.

Lucky Cynic

This looks incredible. I thought the web was already fast with nearly instant edits and updates, but now even things like blogs and picture galleries and conversations are just... animated!

Very impressive/awkward demo.

Mr_Rose

Goddamn dudes, the full import of what the Rosy robot was doing (1.20:30 onwards) just hit me - real-time machine translation with decent grammar. As someone who works in the language services industry, this is going to rock my Project Managers' worlds.

Also, the Federation stuff? Someone at Google has clearly been listening to all the corporations who want to use Gmail but don't want it on Google's servers...

devoir

Really need to sit down and watch that video. But it's an hour and twenty minutes -_-

Aridhol

devoir wrote: »

Really need to sit down and watch that video. But it's an hour and twenty minutes -_-

That's what I thought too so I just threw it on before bed thinking I'd fall asleep. I actually watched the whole thing, got out of bed to post here and twittered about it, it's worth watching.

ArcSyn

Isn't MS Groove supposed to be something like this for workplaces?

Mike Danger

Count me as another person who is excited to try Dungeons and Dragons in this. (Although the idea about using it to collaborate on school stuff is a tremendous idea.)

SAW776

God damn, don't tease me like this! I suddenly saw this thread and thought maybe the beta had been released and I had missed it.

The possibilities for this are awesome.

And for things like D&D it'll be amazing once it gets off the ground--the ability to collaberatively edit maps and such with a proper gadget? You could essentially do away with maptools and invisiblecastle and myth-weavers all together, because you could do it all right in Wave.

Mr_Rose

ArcSyn wrote: »

Isn't MS Groove supposed to be something like this for workplaces?

OK, I just looked up Groove and wow is it ever limited in scope compared to this.
From what I can tell, Groove only runs on sharepoint server and only shares Office documents; it has the same dynamic on/offline thing and the simultaneous collaborative editing, but it costs $sharepoint + $Office (per client) + $Groove == $Texas
It also doesn't seem to include all of the dynamic web-publishing stuff like blog integration etc., or any modular extensibility.

Whilst Google hasn't published a price list yet, OSS + open protocol means that even if the big G charge equivalent prices, someone else almost certainly won't.

Also, what do you mean by "for workplaces" exactly?

LoneIgadzra

I don't really understand all these gadgets and robots and things, but I assume it will be clear enough when this is out and I get a chance to play with the API's.

Basically, this looks awesome, and I'm thinking of ways to use it already. Plus the openness of the protocol means you can have a real nice desktop app instead of going through the browser (which is still sub-ideal tbh due to inability to properly leverage OS facilities such as the task bar or dock).

In the long-term, I really like the idea of potentially moving from email to something based off a uniform web-app interface though. I'm always having to explain the ins and outs of email clients and web email clients to my mom and how to access her webmail and how to log into AIM which is a completely un-related technology and all in all if, the future, our ISP was just running a Wave server, life would be so much easier.

Darmak

I wonder when the tinfoil hat people are going to come in here and talk about how evil Google is and how this is an awful idea and will ruin the internet.

LoneIgadzra

I feel fairly certain that google is the scariest company out there at the moment, but it's hard to argue with free, open source, open protocol.

SAW776

If Google can hide a bunch of scary shit in an open source project like this, they deserve to be our overlords. I cannot imagine how many people are going to be pouring over every bit of it to prove that Google is actually run by Satan.

Mr_Rose

Especially since, and this may be a first for Google, they are specifically making their own client/server architecture in such a way that it can be installed as a local server by a private company then completely walled off from the internet so that only their employees can use it.
Or connected via a firewalled gateway with a packet sniffer etc. for the paranoid who also want customers.

ArcSyn

Mr_Rose wrote: »

ArcSyn wrote: »

Isn't MS Groove supposed to be something like this for workplaces?

OK, I just looked up Groove and wow is it ever limited in scope compared to this.
From what I can tell, Groove only runs on sharepoint server and only shares Office documents; it has the same dynamic on/offline thing and the simultaneous collaborative editing, but it costs $sharepoint + $Office (per client) + $Groove == $Texas
It also doesn't seem to include all of the dynamic web-publishing stuff like blog integration etc., or any modular extensibility.

Whilst Google hasn't published a price list yet, OSS + open protocol means that even if the big G charge equivalent prices, someone else almost certainly won't.

Also, what do you mean by "for workplaces" exactly?

I admit that I didn't watch the video yet, but from the comments/article I saw it sounded similar to groove, but yes, groove is much more limited in scope.

True, Groove requires Sharepoint and Office to run properly, but hey, we already have a Sharepoint server, and everyone has Office? So those two points are taken out of the equation and using an official MS program to do collaboration vs. using a third party and hoping it integrates well is an easy choice for most IT departments. Even if it does cost more than Google. This is what I meant by workplaces - offices where they already are so deep into MS where going anywhere else really doesn't make sense unless they feel like doing a total conversion or need something that MS doesn't provide.

I can, however, see this software (if it's free or cheap) really taking hold in the consumer market where people don't have a sharepoint server or other central system to base software on, where Wave would be able to integrate the many different systems that they already use into one centralized piece of software.

Mr_Rose

Speaking as the IT department of a company that is very much not hip-deep in MS code, I can definitely see myself installing a Wave server downstairs, if only so I can get the staff to ditch their MSN chat windows.

Plus, our lead developer can see as far as I can with regards to replacing a significant chunk of our software's back-end with a custom Wave implementation. And the marketing guys would love the ability to basically e-mail/chat right into the system live during demos, then sell that feature as part of the package.



Fake Edit: Also, have added a few links to the OP for more information/signups.

Michael H

LoneIgadzra wrote: »

I don't really understand all these gadgets and robots and things, but I assume it will be clear enough when this is out and I get a chance to play with the API's.

Basically, this looks awesome, and I'm thinking of ways to use it already. Plus the openness of the protocol means you can have a real nice desktop app instead of going through the browser (which is still sub-ideal tbh due to inability to properly leverage OS facilities such as the task bar or dock).

In the long-term, I really like the idea of potentially moving from email to something based off a uniform web-app interface though. I'm always having to explain the ins and outs of email clients and web email clients to my mom and how to access her webmail and how to log into AIM which is a completely un-related technology and all in all if, the future, our ISP was just running a Wave server, life would be so much easier.

You can already sign up and get access to the API information. They're also getting people on the list for beta users.

Here's a linky link: http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

Mr_Rose

Michael H wrote: »

You can already sign up and get access to the API information. They're also getting people on the list for beta users.

Here's a linky link: http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

Linky link also now in the [post=10972659]OP[/post], BTW, as well as a couple others.

And would you look at that; someone already added some voice/phone integration: Twilio phone robot. It parses messages for 'phone numbers and makes them links, then calls both parties, connects them and transcribes the call to the Wave.

Frem

Yeah; pretty much everyone in the beta right now is either a Google employee or a developer. We should have a few more pretty sweet plugins by the time it launches.

(By the way, if you actually know how to write web applications and want to mess around, your chances of getting in early are dramatically higher than for the rest of us. link)

ArcSyn

Holy cow. I'm finally watching the video and even just the starting stuff is awesome!

Rohan

Dark Shroud wrote: »

Meh.

Yeah, pretty much.

Aridhol

Rohan wrote: »

Dark Shroud wrote: »

Meh.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah I don't know if this interweb thing will catch on abloo bloo bloo

LoneIgadzra

Michael H wrote: »

LoneIgadzra wrote: »

I don't really understand all these gadgets and robots and things, but I assume it will be clear enough when this is out and I get a chance to play with the API's.

Basically, this looks awesome, and I'm thinking of ways to use it already. Plus the openness of the protocol means you can have a real nice desktop app instead of going through the browser (which is still sub-ideal tbh due to inability to properly leverage OS facilities such as the task bar or dock).

In the long-term, I really like the idea of potentially moving from email to something based off a uniform web-app interface though. I'm always having to explain the ins and outs of email clients and web email clients to my mom and how to access her webmail and how to log into AIM which is a completely un-related technology and all in all if, the future, our ISP was just running a Wave server, life would be so much easier.

You can already sign up and get access to the API information. They're also getting people on the list for beta users.

Here's a linky link: http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

Yeah, I don't actually want to develop web applications, I just want to use the thing, so it doesn't really matter. I'm just have trouble conceptualizing how the add-ons work based on the explanations in the video. I figure when it's properly released I'll probably download the api's and play for a bit, just for the hell of it. But right now I'm not going to go to the effort of pretending to be legit.

Rohan

Aridhol wrote: »

Rohan wrote: »

Dark Shroud wrote: »

Meh.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah I don't know if this interweb thing will catch on abloo bloo bloo

I a) doubt I'll be using this at any point soon,
b) doubt this has the same significance behind it as the "interweb", and
c) stand by my "meh" :P

devoir

There are always stick-in-the-muds.

1970s: "Why do I need e-mail when I can fax someone? Meh."

Nightslyr

While some of the stuff is damn neat (rudimentary version control and realtime collaboration, realtime translation, realtime blogging, etc), I'm really excited about the e-mail/IM merger. I can't count the number of long e-mail chains I've had sent to me - usually conversations between family members - where I couldn't figure out what was going on because some people fucked up quoting the others. Just having a little indented box that says "This is a comment inserted by your brother" will clear that shit up in a nice, unobtrusive way. Sign me up.

SAW776

Nightslyr wrote: »

While some of the stuff is damn neat (rudimentary version control and realtime collaboration, realtime translation, realtime blogging, etc), I'm really excited about the e-mail/IM merger. I can't count the number of long e-mail chains I've had sent to me - usually conversations between family members - where I couldn't figure out what was going on because some people fucked up quoting the others. Just having a little indented box that says "This is a comment inserted by your brother" will clear that shit up in a nice, unobtrusive way. Sign me up.

Not only that, but the fact that you can replay the wave from the beginning, so you can read each message as its made in the order it was made, rather than having to sift through a giant wall of text.

Rohan

devoir wrote: »

There are always stick-in-the-muds.

1970s: "Why do I need e-mail when I can fax someone? Meh."

I just don't see myself using it, is all. Doesn't mean I can't see the potential behind it, and why people are so excited.

ArcSyn

devoir wrote: »

There are always stick-in-the-muds.

2009: "Why do I need e-mail when I can fax someone? Meh."

Fixed that for you... Ugh.

Mr_Rose

ArcSyn wrote: »

devoir wrote: »

There are always stick-in-the-muds.

2009: "Why do I need e-mail when I can fax someone? Meh."

Fixed that for you... Ugh.

This. A thousand times this; we have, in a lonely corner at the back of the production office, a lone facsimile machine that is for the exclusive use of government customers because they haven't quite figured out e-mail attachments (oh noes, viruses!) yet. We haven't replaced it with a e-mail-to-fax device yet because the MD is just as backwards and doesn't actually believe such a thing can exist. gWave would annihilate what's left of he mind, I think...

Dark Shroud

I just don't see this taking off beyond niche use. I would also like to see business pricing.

Mr_Rose

Yeah, a niche use like e-mail. Are you sure you've entirely apprehended the implications of an open, licence-free protocol and an open source application?

Seriously, even if Google don't have a price that's right for you, someone else will.