Google Data » acd https://googledata.org Everything Google: News, Products, Services, Content, Culture Thu, 19 Mar 2015 18:59:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.5 Announcing Google Shared Spaces https://googledata.org/google-wave/announcing-google-shared-spaces/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=announcing-google-shared-spaces https://googledata.org/google-wave/announcing-google-shared-spaces/#comments Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:15:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=8e17fb220c56c5566cf1bd741b9c2d1d Google Shared Spaces in Google Labs as one of those off-shoots.

A bunch of us who had been working on the Wave APIs were brainstorming about what it would take to just run a Wave gadget. Developers had been doing wonderful stuff --building real-time mini applications--and rather than let that effort go to waste, we wanted to create a new way for people to continue to use these tools and games. Google Shared Spaces is exactly that. A shared space turns a (Wave) gadget into a standalone collaborative application. Just click on the gadget you're interested in to start a new shared space, and then simply send the URL around to share it with your friends and colleagues. You don't need to sign up for a new service - if you have a Google, Twitter or Yahoo account, you're good to go.



Each shared space comes with a chat area (which is just another Wave gadget) for extra interaction. So take Shared Spaces for a spin: Use the Waffle gadget to pick the date for a night out with your friends, annotate a shared map with your favorite places and vote on where to go using any of the polling gadgets. Or if you'd rather stay in, hit the games section and challenge somebody for a good old game of chess. To learn more, check out the quick presentation on our about page.

It's still early, but give it a try and send us feedback through our discussion group.

Posted by Douwe Osinga, Software Engineer, Google Shared Spaces Team]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/announcing-google-shared-spaces/feed/ 0 Waving in 2011 https://googledata.org/google-wave/waving-in-2011/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=waving-in-2011 https://googledata.org/google-wave/waving-in-2011/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:40:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=f8ce867039304c183de88781c39526d8 announced back in August, we are not continuing active development of Google Wave as a stand-alone product, but have been working hard on the open source Wave in a box project and on making waves accessible through Google Docs.

We wanted to let you know that we will keep wave.google.com running past December 31, 2010 until a suitable replacement to host all your waves is available. In the meantime, you can now use the new export feature to download a zipped version of up to ten waves at a time. Learn more in the Google Wave Help Center.

Additionally, Wave in a Box, the project to make it easy for anyone to host their own wave server, has made significant progress on both functionality and community growth. Just last week, the Apache Software Foundation accepted Wave into its incubator for new projects.

Thanks yet again to all our users for giving Wave a try with your schools, businesses and organizations and to the developers who are working on the next steps for the open source project!

Wave on,

Posted by David Wang, Software Engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/waving-in-2011/feed/ 0 Multiple Wave Export https://googledata.org/google-wave/multiple-wave-export/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=multiple-wave-export https://googledata.org/google-wave/multiple-wave-export/#comments Mon, 29 Nov 2010 18:39:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=a012a2b4674f052568a0fb49de7516f7 export a single wave as a Zip file. Now, you can now also select up to 10 waves in your search panel and download them all together as a set of PDFs.



We hope this feature proves a useful way of saving the information that you have in waves. For more information on it, please visit the help center article.

In addition, we're working on ways for you to access waves through Google Docs and as we announced back in August, we'll continue to keep wave.google.com running at least through the end of the year.

Happy exporting!

Posted by Pat Coleman, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/multiple-wave-export/feed/ 0 Wave open source next steps https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-open-source-next-steps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wave-open-source-next-steps https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-open-source-next-steps/#comments Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:24:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=14821004987bb2ff3032dfe0a6ae7e7f an update about our plans for Wave open source code and the federation protocol on our Google Wave Developer blog. The post includes a description of our planned code contributions over the coming months as well as resources for developers to follow the progress of the project and stay involved.

Wave on!

Posted by Soren Lassen, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-open-source-next-steps/feed/ 0 A quick note on next steps for Google Wave https://googledata.org/google-wave/a-quick-note-on-next-steps-for-google-wave/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-quick-note-on-next-steps-for-google-wave https://googledata.org/google-wave/a-quick-note-on-next-steps-for-google-wave/#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:25:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=4483d1a35f4628fe47e690857c2cfc4a post on the official Google blog several weeks ago about some changes to the Wave project, and we wanted to let you know that since then we've been hard at work figuring out all the details of the next steps. We're looking at ways to continue and extend Wave technology in other Google products, open sourcing more of our code and providing support for our loyal users and Apps customers.

While we're still working on plans, we do want to specifically call out that:
  • Wave.google.com will be available at least through the end of the year
  • There will be ways to export your waves before the end of the year
Thank you for your outpouring of support and kind comments. We're grateful to all the people who have been using Wave and the partners and developers who have built on and improved the technology with us. We look forward to sharing more information with you in the coming weeks.

Posted by Lars Rasmussen, Google Wave team]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/a-quick-note-on-next-steps-for-google-wave/feed/ 0 STOP! Waving time… https://googledata.org/google-wave/stop-waving-time/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=stop-waving-time https://googledata.org/google-wave/stop-waving-time/#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:06:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=3e6ab8b6e804e831d95388d13d256d3a our gallery - timers, stopwatches, countdowns, and the like. I think it's because 1) many people use Wave to interact with folks from different timezones, and 2) many people use Wave during meetings... and many people don't like meetings to go over time. :)

Whatever the reasons may be, it's a good thing for all of us, as these extensions come in handy in a variety of situations.

For example, the Remaining Time gadget is a favorite of mine. Its simple interface lets you specify an event name and an event time, and then it countdowns to that time.

We first used this gadget in the Google I/O 2010 conference session waves to show the countdown until the start of the talk. We did this because many developers were eager to watch the live notes for a session from afar, but they couldn't easily convert from the San Francisco time listed into their own local time. By including a countdown, they could look at the remaining time and instantly know when to return to the wave.



More recently, in our local Google DevFest AU conference, I used the gadget to let speakers know how much time they have left to present. I set up a laptop in front of the speakers, created a wave with the gadget in it,and set it to countdown until the end of their talk. By using a wave instead of a desktop app, I could modify the wave from my comfortable seat in the back if I wanted to give them more time or send them a message.

Besides the "remaining time" gadget, you might also check out these time-related extensions:
  • Time-me: Gives you all the basic functionality of a stopwatch - start, stop, and split, but since it's in Wave, anyone can do those actions, and it shows the usernames for each split.
  • Time-Manager: Lets you start and stop counting time, and shows the total time counted. The developer created it because he loves the similar functionality in Basecamp ® for tracking the amount of time spent on tasks and wanted to bring that to Wave.
  • Local time gadget: Lets you specify a time in your locale and converts that time to the local time of whoever's viewing it. It was created by a gamer in the US who schedules gaming sessions for him and his friends in wave, and he wanted to make it easy for them to see the local time for each session.
  • Deadline gadget: Similar to the gadget I described above, this one lets you specify a end time and shows the remaining days, hours, and minutes. This one is designed specifically for visualizing task deadlines, like when a blog post should be completed, and lets you check off the task when done.
Wave on!

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team
]]> our gallery - timers, stopwatches, countdowns, and the like. I think it's because 1) many people use Wave to interact with folks from different timezones, and 2) many people use Wave during meetings... and many people don't like meetings to go over time. :)

Whatever the reasons may be, it's a good thing for all of us, as these extensions come in handy in a variety of situations.

For example, the Remaining Time gadget is a favorite of mine. Its simple interface lets you specify an event name and an event time, and then it countdowns to that time.

We first used this gadget in the Google I/O 2010 conference session waves to show the countdown until the start of the talk. We did this because many developers were eager to watch the live notes for a session from afar, but they couldn't easily convert from the San Francisco time listed into their own local time. By including a countdown, they could look at the remaining time and instantly know when to return to the wave.



More recently, in our local Google DevFest AU conference, I used the gadget to let speakers know how much time they have left to present. I set up a laptop in front of the speakers, created a wave with the gadget in it,and set it to countdown until the end of their talk. By using a wave instead of a desktop app, I could modify the wave from my comfortable seat in the back if I wanted to give them more time or send them a message.

Besides the "remaining time" gadget, you might also check out these time-related extensions:
  • Time-me: Gives you all the basic functionality of a stopwatch - start, stop, and split, but since it's in Wave, anyone can do those actions, and it shows the usernames for each split.
  • Time-Manager: Lets you start and stop counting time, and shows the total time counted. The developer created it because he loves the similar functionality in Basecamp ® for tracking the amount of time spent on tasks and wanted to bring that to Wave.
  • Local time gadget: Lets you specify a time in your locale and converts that time to the local time of whoever's viewing it. It was created by a gamer in the US who schedules gaming sessions for him and his friends in wave, and he wanted to make it easy for them to see the local time for each session.
  • Deadline gadget: Similar to the gadget I described above, this one lets you specify a end time and shows the remaining days, hours, and minutes. This one is designed specifically for visualizing task deadlines, like when a blog post should be completed, and lets you check off the task when done.
Wave on!

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/stop-waving-time/feed/ 0 More domain-level controls for Google Wave https://googledata.org/google-wave/more-domain-level-controls-for-google-wave/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=more-domain-level-controls-for-google-wave https://googledata.org/google-wave/more-domain-level-controls-for-google-wave/#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:08:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=8bd76c93b37833f504ed15b3c6b1106c user policy management, which will allow Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers to customize which users in their domains have access to each application in the suite.

One of the top-requested features from businesses and schools who want to try out Google Wave is the ability to pilot the application with a subset of users. With this new feature, Google Apps admins can now start by enabling Wave for a group of advance testers. For example, at a K-12 school, admins can now enable the service for just teachers and older students, or a large enterprise can turn it on for a specific project group first.



If you're already a Google Apps Premier or Education Edition admin, you'll start seeing the 'Organizations & users' tab in the control panel over the next week. And to learn more about Google Wave for your domain, visit http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/wave.html.

Wave on!

Posted by Greg D'Alesandre, Product Manager, Google Wave Team]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/more-domain-level-controls-for-google-wave/feed/ 0 Waves Down Under-er https://googledata.org/google-wave/waves-down-under-er/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=waves-down-under-er https://googledata.org/google-wave/waves-down-under-er/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 04:04:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=9a130953fb0bcf13b630f7e73bb9059a
First, we had to decide which cruise to take, so we started a planning wave. Greg began by itemising upcoming cruises from a couple of potential operators, listing out dates, routes, and activities. Many of us were keen to kayak in the icy Antarctic waters, so we eventually settled on an eleven-day cruise with a provider from Canada.

Next, we managed the tricky task of choosing sleeping arrangements with a poll gadget in our planning wave. Each person indicated their cabin type preferences, and luckily, a single arrangement fell out of those choices. You can see our votes in the wave (try 'Playback' to see how the discussion evolved).

Then we began the ever-popular tasks of booking flights and accomodation and sorting out what to bring. We decided to divide up the responsibility: Narelle and Alex researched flights, Pat called Argentinian hotels, and Jan looked into the administrivia of visas, immunisations, and equipment (cameras!). Greg ... supervised.

Whenever someone found new information, he or she summarised it in our wave and we discussed the options right there, as a group. Within a day or two our arrangements were complete, and earlier discussions in the wave were replaced with final information such as flight numbers, booking numbers and costs.


A great advantage of planning everything in Google Wave is that the wave always presents a definitive view of the latest information and decisions. It didn't matter if some people missed parts of the discussion, because they could use playback to easily catch up with the decisions or see how the discussion evolved. Once a decision was made, we deleted the discussion and replaced it with the final plan. This meant the wave only displayed the most up-to-date, important information.

If we hadn't used Google Wave, we might have been able to pull the trip together in time, but we're not sure we would have still liked eachother enough to actually enjoy our time trapped on a boat together. Wave helped us pull all our information together into one place, make decisions quickly, and have a record of those decisions for when someone changed their mind. So the next time you want to get out and explore the world with a few friends, (or even colleagues!), give Wave a try.


You can check out some of our photos from the trip. Oh, and we figured as long we were standing on the southernmost continent, we should film Dr. Wave in his unnatural habitat. In fact this was an excuse to put him on the edge of a cliff and throw snowballs at him. Enjoy!




And here's a re-enactment of the wave we used to plan the trip:


Posted by Alex, Jan, Pat, Narelle and Greg, Google Wave Team
]]>
First, we had to decide which cruise to take, so we started a planning wave. Greg began by itemising upcoming cruises from a couple of potential operators, listing out dates, routes, and activities. Many of us were keen to kayak in the icy Antarctic waters, so we eventually settled on an eleven-day cruise with a provider from Canada.

Next, we managed the tricky task of choosing sleeping arrangements with a poll gadget in our planning wave. Each person indicated their cabin type preferences, and luckily, a single arrangement fell out of those choices. You can see our votes in the wave (try 'Playback' to see how the discussion evolved).

Then we began the ever-popular tasks of booking flights and accomodation and sorting out what to bring. We decided to divide up the responsibility: Narelle and Alex researched flights, Pat called Argentinian hotels, and Jan looked into the administrivia of visas, immunisations, and equipment (cameras!). Greg ... supervised.

Whenever someone found new information, he or she summarised it in our wave and we discussed the options right there, as a group. Within a day or two our arrangements were complete, and earlier discussions in the wave were replaced with final information such as flight numbers, booking numbers and costs.


A great advantage of planning everything in Google Wave is that the wave always presents a definitive view of the latest information and decisions. It didn't matter if some people missed parts of the discussion, because they could use playback to easily catch up with the decisions or see how the discussion evolved. Once a decision was made, we deleted the discussion and replaced it with the final plan. This meant the wave only displayed the most up-to-date, important information.

If we hadn't used Google Wave, we might have been able to pull the trip together in time, but we're not sure we would have still liked eachother enough to actually enjoy our time trapped on a boat together. Wave helped us pull all our information together into one place, make decisions quickly, and have a record of those decisions for when someone changed their mind. So the next time you want to get out and explore the world with a few friends, (or even colleagues!), give Wave a try.


You can check out some of our photos from the trip. Oh, and we figured as long we were standing on the southernmost continent, we should film Dr. Wave in his unnatural habitat. In fact this was an excuse to put him on the edge of a cliff and throw snowballs at him. Enjoy!




And here's a re-enactment of the wave we used to plan the trip:


Posted by Alex, Jan, Pat, Narelle and Greg, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/waves-down-under-er/feed/ 0 Embedding UStream & Wave = Live video + live typing, together at last https://googledata.org/google-wave/embedding-ustream-wave-live-video-live-typing-together-at-last/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=embedding-ustream-wave-live-video-live-typing-together-at-last https://googledata.org/google-wave/embedding-ustream-wave-live-video-live-typing-together-at-last/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 17:41:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=1c2428af8658e9771627852c1da49573
So, I setup a Ustream channel for the event, powered by a sleuth webcam in the front row of the audience, and also set up a backchannel discussion wave for each day of the event. Both the Ustream video player and Google Wave are embeddable, so I could combine the two on the same page - like this one for the Chrome & OpenWeb day. To make that page, I just grabbed the embed code on the UStream channel page, generated the embed code from the Wave Web element page -- enabling the header/footer options to make the "Next unread message" button visible -- and pasted them into a simple HTML page.



The great thing about using an embedded wave is that some folks (the virtual ones) can interact with it via the Ustream page, and other folks (the live audience members) can do the same by logging into their Google Wave account. Using a wave also meant we could easily have multiple conversations at the same time and pull in multimedia, like when I used the HTML gadget to play around with the HTML elements on the slides.

To try it for your next conference, class or virtual get together, follow these step-by-step instructions:

1. Visit the channel page, like http://www.ustream.tv/channel/devfest-au

2. Click "embed codes" on the top right of the video player.

3. Copy the "Live show" code.

4. Paste it into an HTML webpage.

5. Visit the wave. Copy the URL in the browser bar or in the "Link to this page" dialog.

6. Visit the Wave web element page (http://www.google.com/webelements/wave/). Paste the URL into that page.

7. Copy the generated code into your HTML page.

8. To align the wave next to the ustream, like in my example, wrap both of them in a div with style "float:left".

.. enjoy the live-ness!


Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/embedding-ustream-wave-live-video-live-typing-together-at-last/feed/ 0 Clarifying wave deletion https://googledata.org/google-wave/clarifying-wave-deletion/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=clarifying-wave-deletion https://googledata.org/google-wave/clarifying-wave-deletion/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:03:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=b2af115d85b2dd8c3388adbf2276603a
To be more specific: When you are removed from a wave that you have seen before, whether you remove yourself or someone else removes you, you are given a chance to acknowledge that you are OK being removed. At the top of such waves, there is a button that says "Delete my copy". Until you click this button, you keep a copy of the wave up until the point you've been removed.



You can keep that copy forever. We delete only waves where all participants have been removed, and none are keeping a copy.

Currently, "Delete my copy" does the same as moving the wave to trash, but this may change in the future. Previous releases of Google Wave did not have the "Delete my copy" button; moving to trash was the only way to delete your copy.

If you have questions, please visit our Help Forum.

Posted by Paul Korzhyk, Software Engineer Google Wave Team]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/clarifying-wave-deletion/feed/ 0 Ole ole ole ole: Google Wave Football Fever! https://googledata.org/google-wave/ole-ole-ole-ole-google-wave-football-fever/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ole-ole-ole-ole-google-wave-football-fever https://googledata.org/google-wave/ole-ole-ole-ole-google-wave-football-fever/#comments Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:02:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=d39b700d588ada42c13801d249e1400b Google Wave Football Fever: a way to help you stay on top of the matches in South Africa, predict the outcomes and organize viewing parties with your friends.

My first experience following the tournament was back in 1994 when the information technology wasn't as advanced as it is these days. For weeks, practically all I did was stay up late, get up early, tune in to the TV day in and out, and wait anxiously for the newspaper to arrive in the morning just to get the latest scores, news, or highlights. Oh boy, what a fun life!

Nowadays, however, such information is delivered to us more conveniently on the internet, but so much of the fun is still getting together with other people to discuss and debate the games, both in person, and virtually. So we designed a set of templates for Wave to help you do both.

Visit our main Football Fever page. From there for each match of the tournament you can:

  • Predict the game: Start a new wave where you and your friends can make predictions on the final outcome, the top player, and add your own custom polls. Once the match is completed, the prediction gadget will show the final outcome, and who came closest. Hey, who knows - maybe you have a hidden talent as a sports analyst!

  • Plan a viewing party: Of course, these events aren't complete without fun hang-out times with your friends. Start a new wave where you and your friends can organize a gathering to watch a game together or an after party to celebrate your winning team.
  • Get live commentary: Both the prediction and viewing party waves display live updates from Google News and Twitter. So, you won't miss a moment when Wayne Rooney scores a goal, and you'll see what the fans out there are saying about it!
To add some extra football love, why not show your team spirit in Wave with a fan-flavored avatar? Check out the football-themed Picnik effects and then update your photo.

And if you need any help, just visit our Help Forum.

See you in South Africa!

Posted by Marcel Prasetya, Software Engineer and Brasil fan, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/ole-ole-ole-ole-google-wave-football-fever/feed/ 0 Wave This! https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-this/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wave-this https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-this/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:10:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=3964c8085e4284b29e736f66ff8a99c5 WaveThis, a set of easy ways to create a discussion in a wave directly from the site you want to share.

Look to the right of this blog post. You'll see a "WaveThis" button that lets the visitors to this blog (that's you!) easily discuss this blog post with their friends and coworkers in a small group. It's less public than broadcast tools and more interactive than using email. When you click the "WaveThis" button, it will copy the title and URL of this post and drop it in a new wave. Then, you can add your friends to the wave to start discussing. Try it out!

Of course you will come across stuff on the web that you want to discuss in a wave where there isn't a WaveThis button ready for you to click. To help with that, we've created a WaveThis bookmarklet and a Chrome extension. To use the bookmarklet, drag the link below to your bookmarks in Firefox, Safari or Chrome.

WaveThis bookmarklet

After that, any time you see something interesting on the web you want to discuss, just select the text that drew your eye, click that bookmark and presto! you have a new wave! The Chrome extension works the same way. To get it, just visit the WaveThis extension from your Google Chrome browser and press 'Install.'

If you are a webmaster, you can now craft a URL that, if followed, automatically creates a new wave with a specific title and content, like this:

https://wave.google.com/wave/wavethis?u=http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/06/wave-this.html&t=Wave+This&c=Awesome+new+service

Now, a wave wouldn't be a wave if all you could do was copy over some plain old text. Websites that want to incorporate some interactivity into the resulting waves can specify a helper gadget. For example, a WaveThis link to a YouTube video looks like this:

http://wave.google.com/wave/wavethis?g=http://wave-this.appspot.com/public/youtube.xml&u=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo&t=Look+at+this+video

The wave that is created has the video embedded so that your friends know what you're talking about, like this:



Learn more about adding WaveThis to your website at http://code.google.com/apis/wave/wavethis/.

Wave away!

Posted by Douwe Osinga, Software Engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-this/feed/ 0 Happy 1st Birthday, Google Wave! https://googledata.org/google-wave/happy-1st-birthday-google-wave-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=happy-1st-birthday-google-wave-2 https://googledata.org/google-wave/happy-1st-birthday-google-wave-2/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 22:49:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=6454de05f824a468505f8e996bc9a6f8 we posted about our first birthday on the Official Google blog.

Here on our team blog, we wanted to add a big "THANK YOU!" to all of the developers, students, teachers, journalists, screenwriters, video producers, analysts, entrepreneurs, robot builders, musicians, dentists, gamers, community organizers, veterinarians, hotel managers, engineers and everyone else who have been using Google Wave and sharing feedback and stories to help us continue building and improving the product, platform and protocol.

Here's to you!


Wave on!

Posted by Anna-Christina Douglas, Product Marketing, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/happy-1st-birthday-google-wave-2/feed/ 0 Google Wave Available for Everyone https://googledata.org/google-wave/google-wave-available-for-everyone/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-wave-available-for-everyone https://googledata.org/google-wave/google-wave-available-for-everyone/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 23:10:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=0f2a9da9cf5a8b9d77d68b7eabe9ef52 wave.google.com and sign right in. Likewise, if you are a Google Apps administrator at a business, school or organization, you can now easily enable Google Wave for all your users at no extra cost (more on our Enterprise blog).

We began previewing Google Wave with individuals and a handful of Google Apps customers six months ago. Since then, Wave has been used in a great many interesting ways. It's clear from the invaluable feedback we've received that Wave is a great place to get work done, in particular for teams working together on projects that involve lots of discussion and close coordination. Here are a few examples:

Business: Co-workers at companies large and small are using Wave, from writing software code at Lyn and Line and coordinating ad campaigns at Clear Channel Radio, to international project communications for Deloitte's As One project.

Education: University students and professors worldwide have used waves within and beyond the classroom to collaborate on Latin poetry translations, write academic research papers and even build new functionality with Wave's APIs. An ICT teacher also enjoyed having her 5th-graders do their class research in Wave.

Creative collaboration: From virtual art classes to writing the Complete Guide to Google Wave itself, waves make it easier for groups to review and critique multimedia content like images and videos. (We've heard that Wave is fun for gaming, too.)

Organizations and conferences: The Debatewise Global Youth panel explored climate change across 100 countries and waves at eComm (Emerging Communication Conference), LCA 2010 conference and HASTAC 2010 helped track speaking sessions. We are using waves in the same manner at today's Google I/O conference.

Journalism: Mashable used Wave to interview journalists on the future of journalism, and The Seattle Times experimented with a public Wave to develop their Pulitzer Prize-winning news coverage.

And here's a brief video to illustrate how groups can work together in Wave:



If you tried Google Wave out a while ago, and found it not quite ready for real use, now is a good time to come back for a second try. Wave is much faster and much more stable than when we began the preview, and we have worked hard to make Wave easier to use. For example, you can now get email notifications when waves change, easily navigate to unread parts of a wave, and remove participants added by mistake. We have also added permission management options and an extensions gallery.

Today, we are also launching several improvements to the Wave APIs and open sourcing additional components for developers building their own Wave services. Read more about these updates on our developer blog.

Wave on!

Posted by Stephanie Hannon, Product Manager, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/google-wave-available-for-everyone/feed/ 0 Discover your favorite extension today! https://googledata.org/google-wave/discover-your-favorite-extension-today/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=discover-your-favorite-extension-today https://googledata.org/google-wave/discover-your-favorite-extension-today/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 17:13:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=34188763b88341e1927bbdae1bda33bb introductory blogpost about the extension gallery, we've been thrilled by all of the useful and interesting Google Wave extensions coming out of the developer community. With every enhancement we announce, developers find inventive ways to create handy extensions.

Accordingly, the number of extensions is growing, and we would like to introduce a few improvements we've made to make it easier to discover, browse, and sample extensions for yourself.

Starting at the top, you will notice we replaced the previous Extensions link with a dedicated Extensions section. This section lets you check out "Featured" extensions that our team would like to highlight -- the Wave team occasionally selects these extensions because we think they're particularly useful, user-friendly and "Wave-y." You can also browse many other extensions in our gallery via the "All" link.



We also overhauled the gallery view itself, allowing you to see each extension's icon and description, at a glance



Additionally, we've made it easier to start using an extension. If you see a particular extension you like and want to quickly take it for a spin, you can simply "Try It Now" -- even without installing it. If you like it and want to use it later, just go back in your browser and click "Install." Please note that not all extensions support this feature at the moment, but we hope more will add this option in the near future.



We hope you find these improvements useful as we work towards providing a first-class extension experience within Google Wave. Stay tuned for more advancements in the future. If you're a developer, you can get started building extensions and then submit them for the gallery.


Posted by David Byttow, Software Engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/discover-your-favorite-extension-today/feed/ 0 Embed sites in waves with the Iframe Gadget https://googledata.org/google-wave/embed-sites-in-waves-with-the-iframe-gadget/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=embed-sites-in-waves-with-the-iframe-gadget https://googledata.org/google-wave/embed-sites-in-waves-with-the-iframe-gadget/#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:50:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=f2cde2e0e3beb21dfb4b76442bd37e41
For example, let's say you want to embed your team's calendar on a wave. First, follow the instructions in the Google Calendar Help Center to find the Iframe code for embedding the calendar. Then, copy the URL out of that code and specify it in the Iframe gadget. Presto, calendar-o!



Basically, any time a site gives you a snippet of code that includes "< iframe >", you can retrieve the URL and use it with the Iframe gadget. Here's another example of how to embed a Google presentation in a wave. First, click "Share->Publish" on the presentation, then copy the URL from the Iframe code there and paste that into the Iframe gadget, making sure it's tall enough to show the controls.


Even if the site doesn't give you an Iframe embed code, you can still try embedding the page URL and see how it looks.

To get started with the IFrame gadget, sign into Google Wave and install it from here.

Additionally, if a site gives you a snippet of code that uses an "<embed>" or "<script>" tag (equating to a Flash or JavaScript widget), you can use the HTML gadget, by the same author, to embed that site in a wave. To try that one out, install it from here.

We hope this helps you integrate more content into Google Wave.

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team
]]>
For example, let's say you want to embed your team's calendar on a wave. First, follow the instructions in the Google Calendar Help Center to find the Iframe code for embedding the calendar. Then, copy the URL out of that code and specify it in the Iframe gadget. Presto, calendar-o!



Basically, any time a site gives you a snippet of code that includes "< iframe >", you can retrieve the URL and use it with the Iframe gadget. Here's another example of how to embed a Google presentation in a wave. First, click "Share->Publish" on the presentation, then copy the URL from the Iframe code there and paste that into the Iframe gadget, making sure it's tall enough to show the controls.


Even if the site doesn't give you an Iframe embed code, you can still try embedding the page URL and see how it looks.

To get started with the IFrame gadget, sign into Google Wave and install it from here.

Additionally, if a site gives you a snippet of code that uses an "<embed>" or "<script>" tag (equating to a Flash or JavaScript widget), you can use the HTML gadget, by the same author, to embed that site in a wave. To try that one out, install it from here.

We hope this helps you integrate more content into Google Wave.

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/embed-sites-in-waves-with-the-iframe-gadget/feed/ 0 Removing participants https://googledata.org/google-wave/removing-participants/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=removing-participants https://googledata.org/google-wave/removing-participants/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 00:39:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=7280edb7cfe24956a0d357d8e9ffdce5
  • Removing someone who you accidentally added
  • Removing yourself from a wave that's no longer interesting
  • Removing someone who's not participating in good spirit or at all
  • Removing another person as a courtesy when the wave is no longer relevant to them
We knew this would not just be as simple as eliminating a user abruptly from a conversation. For instance, if you removed your friend as a courtesy, she should still be able to access to the content she has already seen.

Furthermore, the interaction between private replies and the larger wave conversation is interesting. Should you keep participating in a private reply even though you've been removed from the main conversation? How about if you've never seen the main conversation?

Answering these questions is a lot tougher than it may seem at first glance -- particularly considering Google Wave's unique liveness, where every action has an immediate consequence that's visible to all participants on a wave. Designing a scalable infrastructure for this proved challenging, at times confounding, and ultimately very rewarding.

Our coolest innovation in my opinion is what we think of as the It-Never-Happened scenario. Imagine this: after a rough day at work, you spend the night out with friends and return home to write a less-than-flattering message to, say, your boss. At 6am you wake up and realize what you've done to your implacable horror! Alas, with email and other forms of communication, you'd be out of luck, and perhaps spend all morning inventing clever excuses about how your computer was taken over by crafty hackers. With a wave however, you simply remove your boss as a participant, and when she wakes up at 7am to check her messages, the wave is gone from her inbox. As long as she didn't open the wave before you removed her, she will never see it. Cool!


But what if she had already opened the wave by the time you removed her from it? Well, consider a different scenario: someone adds you to a wave promising they'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash their fence. You open the wave, agree to the proposition, and proceed with the whitewashing. Yards of fence later, that someone removes you from the wave. You certainly would want to have a record of the deal ('It totally happened')! Since you had opened the wave before you were removed from it, you retain a read-only copy of the wave up to the time you were removed. You can still play back the wave, but you won't see future changes or be able to make further contributions.



We carefully designed the feature so neither the person who removed you, nor others on the wave can see whether or not you have opened the wave. They can only tell you have been removed and that you no longer see changes to the wave (unless, of course, someone adds you back).

Finally, you also have the option to remove yourself from a wave. We've all been added to conversation threads that turned out to be unimportant or uninteresting. With email you have to ask someone else to take you off the thread, or set up a filter to stop those messages from appearing in your inbox. Now in Wave, when your friend adds you to a wave about the dinner party he's having the same weekend that you're out of town for business, you can simply remove yourself from the wave and you won't have a constant reminder of all the fun you'll be missing.

We hope the considerable amount of effort we've put into designing and building this feature increases your productivity and ability to organize and share waves the way you want.

Wave on!

Posted by Dhanji R. Prasanna, Software Engineer, Google Wave team]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/removing-participants/feed/ 0 Wave for Webjournos | The right tool, the right time https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-for-webjournos-the-right-tool-the-right-time/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wave-for-webjournos-the-right-tool-the-right-time https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-for-webjournos-the-right-tool-the-right-time/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:10:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=2b5e6595c27d6422616fce68a89d8813 This is a guest post from Cory Haik, Assistant Managing Editor, Seattletimes.com.

On April 12, 2010, it was announced The Seattle Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for coverage of the tragic slayings of four Lakewood, Wash., police officers on November 29, 2009. That honor recognized the work of the entire newsroom and the award goes to the whole staff. I'd like to extend that just a bit.

As a Web journalist, it's all about choosing the right tools wisely. Sometimes those tools are the tried and true. Like a notebook and pen. Shoe-leather, feet-on-the-street reporting should never be taken for granted or displaced by shiny new products. But sometimes, well, it's all about the beta, baby. Like going live from an iPhone with the Ustream broadcaster app. Or like a Twitter hashtag stream on your homepage. Or like Google Wave.

Below is an excerpt from the quick piece I wrote for seattletimes.com the day after the manhunt for the shooting suspect was over. It describes some of the social-tool uses which were a critical part of the online breaking news coverage of this traumatic community event. Using Google Wave was something we thought of in the moment -- and in the middle of a breaking story that already included several social media elements.

Seattletimes.com decided at the height of the story to engage with local citizenry and others through a social media experiment. Google Wave, described by Google as, "an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration," became a live document that allowed folks on the web interested in the story to take part in helping move it forward. It was social media, reporting and online journalism at the next level. At least, a crack at it.

Some elements of the wave included links to police scanner audio, live video, information about road closures, school lockdowns, suspect information and more. A manhunt map was created inside the wave and updated by participants. And a map was linked inside the wave that seattletimes.com then used on the site. It was useful to producers updating the site because they could put information out and get tips back, instantly. We then could pass the tips on to the Metro desk and follow along that way. It was like using Twitter with a real-time response and rich content.

Despite the fact that we reached fewer than 500 people and encountered a couple of technical glitches, I'd like to think that using Google Wave was successful. And if the No. 1 rule of social media -- or at least my No. 1 rule of social media -- is that using it as it's useful to you is the rule, then I am quite confident it was.

Thanks to the folks at Google Wave for giving me this place to post. And here's where I'd like to extend the breaking news award to all the users that read and engaged with our site, to all the @seattletimes followers and especially to the folks that jumped into our Google Wave experiment (PDF of the wave). It was picking up one of the right tools for this breaking news coverage. And that's the key to serving the story and serving the user-- the two most important things.

Posted by Cory Tobert Haik, Assistant Managing Editor, seattletimes.com
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/wave-for-webjournos-the-right-tool-the-right-time/feed/ 0 Google Wave for Artists https://googledata.org/google-wave/google-wave-for-artists/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-wave-for-artists https://googledata.org/google-wave/google-wave-for-artists/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:23:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=c479851ca2457c98c24e93e052a31641 Google Groups support in Google Wave. After moving a couple of online and offline groups onto Google Wave, the other group admins and I realized how effective waves are for managing group content.

We use the groups to share our artwork, everything from five-minute sketches, to work-in-progress pieces, to finished paintings. Once or twice a month, we send out group assignments where everyone picks one reference picture or theme to work on. Once they've finished working on it, members drop their work in the wave for that theme. This is a lot of fun since we get to see a variety of interpretations from different corners of the world.



Before, our conversations were distributed between 4 or 5 websites and online tools and it was really difficult for new members to catch up with the rest of the group. Google Wave now serves as a one-stop-shop for our group, and the conversations are livelier since we aren't restricted to text-only interaction.

We no longer need to keep track of member locations in spreadsheets and group databases. The Clustered Map gives us a visual representation of where everyone is located and is a handy tool for organizing offline activities like sketchcrawls.

The Plus One extension has eliminated the need to scroll through pages and pages of "+1s" and "I agree" to figure out what the group wants. The Waffle extension makes it easier for the group to pick a topic for an online class or a weekly challenge.

Discussions don't need to begin and end in the Google Wave interface. We can embed waves in our websites or blogs and access the conversation both on our website and from the Google Wave UI.


Given all the benefits, there is a learning curve for new members and they do need a little hand-holding to get used to the features (from "How do I send my photos? There's no attachment option." to "Oh, I can just drag-n-drop! How cool!"). So, here are some tips for admins and members to get started on group waves:

Tips for group admins:
Tips for group members:
I'm always looking out for new art groups to join, so if you know of any art groups on Google Wave, or would like to get your group using it, join the discussion at http://goo.gl/ZO0v .


Posted by Pooja Srinivas, Associate Manager, Google Analytics, Hyderabad, India ]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/google-wave-for-artists/feed/ 0 Try out new Google Wave wave notifications! https://googledata.org/google-wave/try-out-new-google-wave-wave-notifications/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=try-out-new-google-wave-wave-notifications https://googledata.org/google-wave/try-out-new-google-wave-wave-notifications/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:19:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=ae0524894691decfc60de735704ec774 Google Wave wave notifications.

You can enable Google Wave wave notifications through the drop down menu that appears when you mouse over the Inbox link in the Navigation panel.



You can set the volume for your notifications to Silent, Medium, Loud or Vibrate and pick your preferred notifier. We look forward to offering more advanced options like black-out hours, vacation mode and personalized, downloadable wavetones.

Known issues:
Remember, this is just a preview, so there are still some kinks in the system. Here are some we know about and are working on:
  • At certain times of day, your first choice notifier may be unavailable. In this case, a substitute will be provided
  • Genuine greetings may be confused for notifications. We are working on clearer signals to disambiguate these situations, but when in doubt we recommend you check your Google Wave inbox.

Check out our demo video to see Google Wave wave notifications in action:



We look forward to adding more types of Google Wave wave notifications, but want to hear how it's working for you, so please give us feedback.

Happy waving!

Posted by Pat Coleman, Software engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/try-out-new-google-wave-wave-notifications/feed/ 0 Beyond Yes/No/Maybe: Gathering Feedback in waves https://googledata.org/google-wave/beyond-yesnomaybe-gathering-feedback-in-waves/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=beyond-yesnomaybe-gathering-feedback-in-waves https://googledata.org/google-wave/beyond-yesnomaybe-gathering-feedback-in-waves/#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:46:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=cbeb07a250970b33042d27238efa1d3b

Pollo Gadget

Sometimes you want a full-featured survey in your wave, to get opinions from participants on a variety of options - that's what this gadget enables. Participants can vote for an existing option or add a new one if their favorite isn't listed. Additionally, any participant can modify the configuration for the poll, like whether participants can vote multiple times, whether to show people's avatars next to their vote, and more.

You can use Pollo to gather opinions from colleagues about work conditions (like the Greek food in the cafe, yum), ask conference attendees about their background, or vote on the best submissions in a contest.

If you like that gadget, you might also want to try out these extensions: Poll Gadget, Yes/No/Maybe+, and Decing.



Likey

Sometimes you just want to sprinkle your wave with little approval/disapproval widgets, to see whether other participants agree. The Likey gadget displays "Like|Dislike", the number of participants that have clicked "Like" or "Dislike", and an indicator of what you clicked.

You can use Likey to figure out which items people like on a restaurant menu (we do this with internal cafe menus), vote on movies you're thinking of watching with friends, or learn what your teammates think about specific product feature requests.

If you like that gadget, you might also want to try out these extensions: PlusOne Gadget and Like-it.




Waffle

Other times, you have a really specific objective: finding out the best date for a particular event. The Waffle gadget is perfect for that - it lets users add on potential dates, indicate "yes/no/maybe" for each date, and then summarizes the results for each date. And yes, it does look a bit like a Waffle.

You could use it to decide when to watch a movie, figure out when your team members are going on vacation, or schedule a round of beer nights.







Please try out these extensions, and let us know what you think in the user help forum. Give us feedback on how you gathered feedback!

Posted by Pamela Fox, Developer Relations, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/beyond-yesnomaybe-gathering-feedback-in-waves/feed/ 0 Help test email notifications! https://googledata.org/google-wave/help-test-email-notifications/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=help-test-email-notifications https://googledata.org/google-wave/help-test-email-notifications/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:01:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=fe90f72d56da890a006e6ae0b3c58acb
Go to your Inbox, drop down the menu - et voila !


How does it work?
From the Notifications menu, you can select the frequency of your email updates. If you are an infrequent Google Wave user we would recommend the "immediately" setting, but you can change it at any time.

When you're added to a new wave, or a wave that you are on changes, we'll send you an email with a short summary of the text and links to go straight to your updated waves. Rest assured, we know waves can change a lot, so we will only send you one notification about a changed wave until you have logged in to look at it (i.e.: if a wave changes 10 times after we send the first notification, we won't send 10 more emails). Waves you have open also won't trigger updates.

I love this! Please switch on email notifications for all of my friends!
We're still refining this feature and part of that includes getting feedback from enthusiastic users like you.

If you want to use Google Wave with your friends, family or colleagues who aren't logging in frequently, help them to turn on notifications. Then, they can get updates on their Google Wave account, even if they mainly stick to checking their email inbox.

Known issues
This is still a work in progress. For example, we're aware that:
  • Sometimes the email snippet does not show all participants on the wave
  • Under certain conditions you may get an update about a wave even if you were the last person to change it
  • To change the notifications setting you have to go back to the menu where you turned it on. (The link at the bottom of the notification emails is not working yet.)
We will resolve these issues over the next few weeks, but wanted to get your early feedback. If you try this feature and would like to report issues to us, please use our help forum.


Posted by Ged Ellis, Software engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/help-test-email-notifications/feed/ 0 Ten tips for waving https://googledata.org/google-wave/ten-tips-for-waving/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ten-tips-for-waving https://googledata.org/google-wave/ten-tips-for-waving/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:51:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=4ccbc41418501bc6b5c8764ed43b6bb2 request an invitation.


Double click!

You can edit or reply to any part of a wave by double clicking on it.





Use 'Shift + Enter'
Submit and create new replies with 'Shift+Enter' to make a conversation go faster.





Hit spacebar

Move through the unread messages in a wave by pressing the spacebar.




Edit your profile

Give yourself a picture instead of a grey head. Click on your name in the Contacts panel.




Link to another wave

Create a link to another wave by dragging it over from the search panel while you're editing.




Make a wave public

Share a wave with the world. Add public@a.gwave.com to your contacts, then to the wave. Then, click on the contact at the top to make it read-only.




Follow a wave

If you want to see it in your inbox, click "Follow". "Unfollow", if you don't.




Add a search result

Use the G+ gadget on the editing toolbar to add a link, image or video to your wave




Filter your waves

Create saved searches by clicking the '+' next to SEARCHES in the Navigation panel. Add color coding, too!




Open multiple waves at once

Hold 'Ctrl' and click on a wave in the search panel to open waves side by side.





We also post tips on Twitter, so follow @googlewave and share your own #wavetips, too!

Happy waving!

Posted by Anna-Christina Douglas, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/ten-tips-for-waving/feed/ 0 Radio waving https://googledata.org/google-wave/radio-waving/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=radio-waving https://googledata.org/google-wave/radio-waving/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:05:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=9fc0140aeaa9b49d15e812dde9d06662 Last week, Dennis Elliot at Clear Channel in Greensboro, North Carolina added wave.stories@googlewave.com to a wave which we'd love to share here on the blog.

Just wanted to tell you guys that we are loving the wave here at Clear Channel Radio in Greensboro NC where we have 5 FM radio stations.

We have just started using it and only have a small number of our staff on it right now, but we plan on expanding it to everyone as soon as possible.

It has made projects which are very detailed and require a lot of back and forth input and discussion from several people much easier to do.

As an example, I am adding you to a wave called Big Game Home Invasion. This is an on air and on line promotion involving two clients. Plus we needed to have input on putting it together from two sales people, the sales manager, the station program director, the station promotions director, the online content coordinator and me, the online content director.


Without a wave, we would have had to resort to numerous back and forth e-mails, sending graphics files to each other for approval, having people go from office to office to see updates and answer questions and lots of time tracking people down by phone. Instead, we did the entire project in wave in just a fraction of the amount of time it would normally have taken. In fact, you will see a comment by Jennifer near the bottom of the wave where she says she is seriously crying at her desk. She is referring to the fact that we got through this project in just a fraction of the time it would normally have taken and without a lot of the hassles we normally have in something like this.

Thanks for the news, Dennis, and keep those wave stories coming!


Posted by Anna-Christina Douglas, Product Marketing, Google Wave
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/radio-waving/feed/ 0 Creating software and superheroes: Google waving with Lyn And Line https://googledata.org/google-wave/creating-software-and-superheroes-google-waving-with-lyn-and-line/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=creating-software-and-superheroes-google-waving-with-lyn-and-line https://googledata.org/google-wave/creating-software-and-superheroes-google-waving-with-lyn-and-line/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:59:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=cac3abdadf06ff17299a5715ab9fa692 When we heard that Caroline Dahllöf and Carolyn Uy, Lyn And Line founders and creators of The Rescue of Ginger, use Google Wave almost exclusively for their business, we asked them to write a post about it. Here's how they use waves to create educational story apps (about superheroes, no less!) for kids between the ages of 2 and 5 for the Android and iPhone platforms.



We're a small software company -- just two people. But we live in two different countries, on two different continents, more than 8500 kilometers apart with a time difference of nine hours. Communication for us is a little more complicated than just yelling across the room whenever we need to discuss something. Since a good part of our working day takes place while the other is sleeping, we have to put in a little extra effort to keep each other informed.

We started using Google Wave to organize our conversations. We set up waves for all the things that we need to discuss. For example, to keep each other informed of source code changes, we created a wave where we add blips for what we changed in our code. We have another wave for tracking our bugs. And we even added our testers to that wave, so they could add bugs they found. This made it easy for everyone to see what needed to be fixed. We have a wave for the next story we are writing, where we can add, edit, or comment on each other’s ideas. We have a wave for people we need to contact. This list goes on and on. For anything that is on-going that we need to keep each other up to date on, we set up a wave.

Because we can have mini conversations inside of our waves, we can keep all of the information pertaining to a particular subject contained inside a single wave. And unlike the clutter of emails that gets saved in some folder, blips of information can be added to a particular wave wherever we need them to keep the conversation flowing and organized.



The beauty of this organization is that every morning, we can look at our inboxes and get a quick overview of what the other person has been doing. Because Google Wave notifies us when there is a change, there is no need for an extra email summarizing what has happened. And there is no need tell the other person, “Make sure you look at XYZ.” Having all of our conversations in different waves has made it easy for us to stay informed despite the distance and time difference.


Contact us at lynandline@googlewave.com .

Posted by Caroline Dahllöf and Carolyn Uy, Lyn And Line
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/creating-software-and-superheroes-google-waving-with-lyn-and-line/feed/ 0 New features: Read-only and Restore https://googledata.org/google-wave/new-features-read-only-and-restore/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-features-read-only-and-restore https://googledata.org/google-wave/new-features-read-only-and-restore/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:44:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=bc1c5999f921dc1f8cac265d0c1f8652
Read-Only Participants
The creator of a wave can now change other participants on the wave between full access and read-only by clicking on their picture at the top of the wave panel, and selecting the access level in the drop-down:



As the name implies, read-only participants are prevented from making any changes to the wave, including adding new participants. They can, however, view live changes to the wave, and look at the history in playback.

You can make entire groups read-only as well, including the "public" group, which includes all Google Wave users. Note that individual permissions take precedence over group permissions, so even if a group has full access, an individual can be given read-only access, and vice versa.

Restore from Playback
Anyone with full access to a wave can now restore that wave to any previous state visible in playback:



Restoring does not delete anything from the playback history, but adds the restored state to the end of the history. That way you can use the new restore function to correct mistakes you or others make in a wave (including restoring the the wrong state!).

For the Public people
We've occasionally received reports from users of public waves that they found it difficult to keep their waves on topic. Read-only and restore may help in such cases: the creator of the wave can make some participants read-only, and then restore the wave to a point they liked.

Future Features
These two simple features are only the beginning of a set of things on our drawing board aimed at giving users better control over waves they create. For example, we're planning to introduce a third access setting -- 'Reply-only' -- that would let users add new blips, but prevent them from editing blips they did not create. We're also re-designing the interface to let you change permissions for several participants more easily.

As always, we welcome your feedback on the new features.


Happy Waving!

Posted by Narelle Cozens, Software Engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/new-features-read-only-and-restore/feed/ 0 Debatewise Global Youth Panel: Waving on climate change https://googledata.org/google-wave/debatewise-global-youth-panel-waving-on-climate-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=debatewise-global-youth-panel-waving-on-climate-change https://googledata.org/google-wave/debatewise-global-youth-panel-waving-on-climate-change/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:54:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=d6fc13183a2dbb96298bd3854b0673ac We asked David Crane, from Debatewise.org, to write a post about how Google Wave was used by the Global Youth Panel to debate climate change in parallel with the Copenhagen conference last month. As they prepare for a second phase of the debates, here's what he had to say about waving with a large international group.

We at Debatewise.org spent the last part of 2009 putting together a Global Youth Panel, a group of 1,000 young people from over 130 different countries, to debate issues arising from the Copenhagen climate change conference. We wanted to harness views from a wide range of people and thought Google Wave would be the very best tool for the job.

We had people sign up from Iraq, South Korea, Myanmar, Bhutan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, 25 countries in Africa, 30-odd in Europe, many parts of Asia and both halves of the Americas. As you’ll imagine, not everyone was blessed with fast machines or equipped with deep technical expertise. Most don’t speak English as a first language. To cap it off, we came up with the idea just six weeks before the conference started.



So it’s fair to say we took on a challenge or two. The tight deadline meant we were using Google Wave out-of-the-box, we had to get quite a few people familiar with the new technology in a short space of time and as anyone who’s worked with large groups of people knows, working with large groups of people is hard.

To organize the debates, our structural approach was to create one index wave containing links to all the debates, each of which had its own set of sub-waves, one for each point making up the debate. The goal was to keep the discussion as manageable and as on-topic as possible.


So far, so straightforward. But the other thing we needed was for the debaters to continually form summaries of the discussion in the first blip. We tried asking and telling people to do this in our daily emails but what seemed to work best was modelling it by leaving little notes in a blip saying “Part of point added to the summary.” This rewarded people publicly, highlighted the type of conversation we wanted to see more of and demonstrated the action we hoped others would take.

This behavioural modelling is, I think, the trick to getting people used to a new environment. Happily, the ability to model behaviour is something Google Wave does brilliantly - from the subtle appearance of an icon in a blip to the real-time typing element and highly useful Playback feature. I’m a huge believer in collective intelligence and think these tools give Google Wave significant advantages over a traditional wiki for bringing new participants into the fold. As a result, we had healthy, live debates on a global scale, giving a voice to youth around the planet in an international forum, and have learned what to do next time.

We're looking forward to the second phase of our project, which starts on January 18th, when our panel will be asked to debate how decisions made in Copenhagen will impact them and their communities. We’ll also ask people to argue from the opposite position to the one they would normally adopt. For example, Bangladeshis might be asked to argue why they do not deserve 15% of any climate fund while the rest of the world argues why they do.

We are always looking for to include people who are passionate about these topics and debate so if you would like to get involved please contact us.


Posted by David Crane, Debatewise
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/debatewise-global-youth-panel-waving-on-climate-change/feed/ 0 Be bold! https://googledata.org/google-wave/be-bold/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=be-bold https://googledata.org/google-wave/be-bold/#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:43:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=effa0d14afb088d94269178ccb187e00 There's a simple, powerful, and fun technique which leads to a better Google Wave experience for you and your friends: edit other people's content! You can edit any message in a wave, not just those you started.

Waves are often shared among a group of people with a common goal: perhaps planning a party or recording meeting notes. When working together, people often hesitate to edit the words of others, especially when they're not the document's original author. But this restraint can be harmful to collaboration. Instead of adding a reply to a wave, ask yourself if everyone might be happy if you just changed the text you're replying to. You can edit a message by double-clicking or by selecting "Edit this message" from the menu at its top-right corner.



For example, your friends might appreciate you discreetly fixing their spelling mistakes rather than pointing them out. You can also delete messages. If a short back-and-forth has resulted in a quick decision, why not replace the conversation with the outcome and justification rather than make everyone else read through the dialogue?

Gardening is a term we use to mean summarising, deleting old content and generally tidying a wave up. Gardening keeps a wave at its most fruitful. As discussions lead to resolutions it's often helpful to weed out the old comments, replacing them with the final result. The original text will always be available in playback but pruning the conversation will make it easier for new participants to follow, and for you too when you next open the wave. You needn't be afraid of trimming some text in an attempt to make the wave more useful. A wave is a shared space and your friends or colleagues will silently thank you for cultivating it.



Wikipedia is a another example of the power of working together. Wikipedia editing guidelines encourage users to be bold. Wikis develop faster if everyone jumps in to add content, fix problems, and tend to the articles. It requires a little politeness and a willingness to let others improve upon your contributions, but it works! Wikipedia encourages you to do what you think is right and accept that others will do the same. This "ask forgiveness rather than permission" policy makes a huge difference to the quality of an article and how fast it can evolve. Openness maximises the potential for collaboration, a huge gain over restricting permissions "just in case" someone acts maliciously.

A great example of this principle in Google Wave is when you and your friends are collaborating on a list. Say you're taking a holiday next week and your friend starts a wave that includes list of things to take. You could make a reply suggesting additions to the list – or you could be bold and add your items directly to the list. Your friends will see the change highlighted when they next view the wave and can always take the items back out again if they disagree. Most often, though, you've both saved your friend some work and kept your wave neatly tended.

We edit each other's waves all the time while working on Google Wave. Because we think it's such a powerful technique, we're working on features to make gardening easier. To begin, we're adding a more obvious "Edit" button so it's easier to get started. Coming soon is a "restore" button, which winds back a wave to a previous state. This will allow you to revert recent changes in case someone (even you!) messes up a wave. Other features on our roadmap will help you organise the content in a wave and emphasise recently edited portions. We're also working on more granular access controls for waves, like allowing some participants to read a wave but not edit it. While openness and trust is best for collaboration, sometimes you really do need limitations so we're working on flexible ways to express this.

Posted by Alex North and Shane Stephens, Software engineers, Google Wave team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/be-bold/feed/ 0 Share your Google Wave stories https://googledata.org/google-wave/share-your-google-wave-stories/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=share-your-google-wave-stories https://googledata.org/google-wave/share-your-google-wave-stories/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:32:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=4d553e71758a42324e3539258d33ee22
"Just thought I'd share a quick story. Was out with a friend last night who is looking for a new apartment with another friend of ours who lives in San Diego. I'd invited both of them to try Google Wave and they said that using it to look for an apartment was a both a gamechanger and a lifesaver! My friend Eric said he cringed at the thought of all the emailing of links, trying to remember which one they liked, etc had they not had Wave. The ability to insert all the links into one wave, leave comments or chat in realtime and clean up as well as go back totally has them both hooked!"
"I used Google Wave to conduct an interview. We did the whole thing in a wave and it worked brilliantly--we could answer questions as he asked them so the pace of the conversation moved really quickly, and we had a record of the whole thing."

"I just had my big wave "aha!" moment. After ~3 weeks of using it, I went to compose an e-mail and found it totally strange that I couldn't have people collaborate with me on my e-mail. Want: collaboration everywhere!"

Have you used Google Wave in an interesting way? We're excited to hear your stories, so if you have one you'd like to share, here's how to let us know:

Share great waves
If you have a cool wave that came together really nicely, add wave.stories@googlewave.com as a participant.

Tell us about a wave 'a-ha' moment
Write a quick description (in a wave) of how using Google Wave helped you out and add wave.stories@googlewave.com to it. Or wave us with a link to a blogpost about interesting examples, like how it was used for international debates.

We won't respond or edit your content, just act like a fly on the wall (and maybe use playback to see how it came together). Down the road, we might feature your story on our blog.

Thanks again to all who are trying the preview, and happy waving!

Posted by Stephanie Hannon, Product Manager, Google Wave
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/share-your-google-wave-stories/feed/ 0 Waving with groups https://googledata.org/google-wave/waving-with-groups/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=waving-with-groups https://googledata.org/google-wave/waving-with-groups/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:00:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=cfafc47ca29fae8287d500a9333ae4de users have noticed that we have the beginnings of support for groups in Google Wave, so we figured we'd give everyone a quick explanation of how it currently works. Keep in mind that this is in the very early stages and we have much better functionality planned for the future, but feel free to try it out!

Currently, you can add a Google Group to a wave, set permissions and then view and edit waves with that group. Unlike other group conversations, however, group waves will only show up in Google Wave, not in the Google Groups interface.

Here are the detailed steps for how to do it:

Step 1: Create a Google Group
When creating a group, note that most of the settings of Google Groups are respected; for instance, if the group is set to allow anyone to view content, anyone may view that wave. You will have to add Google Wave users into your group with their username@gmail.com address (we're in the process of getting username@googlewave.com working, too). Under the 'Appearance' setting, chose an image that will help you identify your group in Google Wave. Learn more about how groups settings work with Google Wave.

If you already have a Google Group, you're ready to go.

Step 2: Add your new group into your contact list
Click the '+' button in the lower right corner of the contacts panel, type in the name of the group (including @googlegroups.com) and hit 'Submit'.



Step 3: Add the group to a wave
This works just like any of your other contacts.

Step 4: Find waves with your group
You can do this either by clicking on the group's contact and then on the "Group Waves" button or by searching for "group:groupname@googlegroups.com". If you'd like to create a quick shortcut to get to these, try saving your search! Find information on more group searches in our Help Center.



Step 5: Follow group waves!
We recently launched the ability to follow waves. You will not be automatically following group waves, so use the follow feature to make them appear in your inbox when they're updated.

This is just the beginning for groups. In the future, you'll have a groups option in your Navigation panel that will help you find and follow group waves. We'd love to hear your thoughts, let us know what you think on our Help Forum.

Posted by Jan Vaughan, Software engineer, Google Wave Team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/waving-with-groups/feed/ 0 A million stamps licked … and counting https://googledata.org/google-wave/a-million-stamps-licked-and-counting/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-million-stamps-licked-and-counting https://googledata.org/google-wave/a-million-stamps-licked-and-counting/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:22:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=42e44e488260221297a8331874715f03 wrote in our last post, our users' top feature request is "more invitations." We've been working to increase the capacity of our preview setup and have sent invitations to everyone who requested an invite through our online form. If you'd like to request an invitation, you can still sign up here.

We've also given existing users additional invitations to share with family, friends, and colleagues. If you know people who want to try out Google Wave during the preview, log in and help them out!



Although we are opening up access a bit, do remember that Google Wave is still only in its early preview phase (read more about what that means). If you are interested in developing with the Google Wave APIs and would like an account on the developer sandbox, you can request one here.

Finally, there are a few sites and even public waves that offer invitations to Google Wave in exchange for email addresses or promotions (on Twitter, for example). You should always be careful about sharing your email address or other personal information and remember that Google Wave is free so you should never have to pay for an invitation, either. So, instead of using a public site or forum, please sign up on our form and we'll send you an invitation.

Happy waving and thank you so much for all the both encouraging and critical feedback we have received so far!

Posted by Grim Iversen, Product Manager, Google Wave
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/a-million-stamps-licked-and-counting/feed/ 0 Your thoughts on waving so far https://googledata.org/google-wave/your-thoughts-on-waving-so-far/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=your-thoughts-on-waving-so-far https://googledata.org/google-wave/your-thoughts-on-waving-so-far/#comments Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:03:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=d010bc8e2c1be3fa133f8ffe05711acf
Since we can't talk to all of our users individually (no matter how hard we try!), we've been running an online survey to get some feedback on the Google Wave experience. We distributed the survey through email (to a random sample of those that volunteered to help), a link in our help center and a tweet. While this may not be a completely representative sample of all Google Wave users, the results have been interesting to us, and we'd like to share them. Here's a quick overview of what Wavers have said so far.

What Wavers like most



The wave itself: The concept of a wave as a central place to communicate and collaborate is what people say they like the most.

One place to discuss and work together: The next most popular is the ability to use Google Wave to work together and integrate messages and documents; many respondents have indicated that existing methods and tools don't meet all of their needs.

Extensions: Close behind the collaboration features, survey respondents liked the ability to extend Google Wave's functionality through gadgets and robots.


What Wavers don't like



Invitations: The biggest request so far has been for more invitations to wave with friends and colleagues. We understand it's hard to communicate and collaborate if you have no contacts so we're working hard to make Google Wave scale to a large number of users.

Integration with other tools: People want Google Wave to be more integrated with their existing tools, like email. They also want to be notified when they get a new wave as their current collaboration processes are built around email, instant messaging and other similar systems.

Speed: The next largest issue has been about the speed of the system - people stated that sometimes it is too slow.


What we're doing with the feedback

With these responses and other data, we're organizing our team around the core issues that are important to making waving better. We're working hard to scale our systems so you can invite your friends and colleagues to wave with you. We're also thinking about how to integrate with existing communication and collaboration tools. And since we all know that fast is better than slow, a large portion of the team is working to make Google Wave faster.

Let us know how we're going with these things and if you are waving feel free to take the survey again and again -- we're interested in seeing how people use Google Wave differently over time. We'll start writing about what people are actually doing with waves, so let us know about interesting things you've tried.

Happy waving!

Posted by Aaron Cheang, User Experience Researcher, Google Wave
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/your-thoughts-on-waving-so-far/feed/ 0 Follow your waves https://googledata.org/google-wave/follow-your-waves/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=follow-your-waves https://googledata.org/google-wave/follow-your-waves/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:09:00 +0000 https://googledata.org/?guid=c651ee542fcf1394d4443874fc0da2b5 We've received lots of feedback from Wavers that the public waves they read were clogging up their inboxes. Today, we've introduced a new concept to Google Wave--"following" waves. Now, clicking on a public wave no longer causes it to appear (and stay) in your inbox; you have to explicitly choose to "follow" the wave.


Here's how following works: When someone adds you directly to a wave, or if you contribute to a wave, you will automatically be following that wave. When you see a public wave that you would like to get updates on, you can chose to follow it by hitting the follow button in the wave panel toolbar. You can remove these waves from your inbox by hitting the "archive" button, but when there is an update they will pop back in. You can switch between following and unfollowing a wave as much and as often as you like.


Public waves that are in your inbox simply because you opened them at some point in the past will start to leave your inbox as they get updated. You can also manually remove them with the "archive" feature, and they will no longer return. We hope this will help with clearing a backlog of unwanted waves.

Please note that the new "unfollow" feature replaces mute. If you no longer want a wave you are on for any reason (whether you created it, added to it or followed it), to show up in your inbox, use "unfollow". You can still find waves that you are not following by searching for them or if you have organized them into saved searches or folders.

Following is the first step towards a set of new tools for managing waves in your inbox. In the future, there will be more control over what kinds of changes will cause a wave to appear in your inbox, and we will soon introduce better support for groups of wave users. We're also thinking of expanding the following concept to let you follow people, groups, and searches. In the meantime, let us know what you think of following, check out some other ways to organize your inbox and share your own #wavetips on Twitter.

Happy following!

Posted by Casey Whitelaw, Engineering tech lead, Google Wave
]]> https://googledata.org/google-wave/follow-your-waves/feed/ 0 Land of the Rising Chrome https://googledata.org/google-chrome/land-of-the-rising-chrome/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=land-of-the-rising-chrome https://googledata.org/google-chrome/land-of-the-rising-chrome/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:59:00 +0000
Engineers at Google Japan developed the Navigational Suggest feature that makes it faster to get where you want to go. For example, if you type "tokyo tower" into the Omnibox, the nifty search and address bar, you'll see a suggestion that will take you directly to the landmark's official website.



Our Japanese engineers also figured out how to speed up Google Chrome's rendering of double-byte languages like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Since comics (or manga) are quite popular in Japan, we thought Japanese users would enjoy a comic book about the contributions of our local team. So we created a brand new issue of our comic book in Japanese. Even if you can't read Japanese, I think you'll enjoy it.




The illustrations are by a talented Japanese artist named Yutanpo Shirane, who picked up right where the first comic left off.

Posted by Kaori Negoro and John Fu, Google Japan
]]> https://googledata.org/google-chrome/land-of-the-rising-chrome/feed/ 0 Get to where you’re going, faster https://googledata.org/google-chrome/get-to-where-youre-going-faster/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=get-to-where-youre-going-faster https://googledata.org/google-chrome/get-to-where-youre-going-faster/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:16:00 +0000


Posted by Glen Murphy, Google Chrome team
]]> https://googledata.org/google-chrome/get-to-where-youre-going-faster/feed/ 0