Google Wave Will Slowly Open Its Doors to Google Apps Users This Fall
Google just announced that it will open up Google Wave to a large number of Google Apps users this fall. According to the announcement, Google will first open up access for some schools and businesses and plans to bring Wave to all Google Apps users next year. Google Apps administrators can now sign up for Google Wave accounts here. Google had already announced that it would hand out about 100,000 Wave accounts on September 30th and this looks to be the first step towards this.
Opening up Wave first to businesses and schools seems like a smart way to open up Wave to a larger number of users, especially given that the application's features are already geared towards these users. Wave is an extremely flexible communications environment and should work well for anybody who needs to collaborate on documents or just wants to keep notes and share them with colleagues or fellow classmates. If you haven't seen Wave in action yet, have a look at this video of the first public demo of Wave.
Wave Today: Stable, Faster, Ready for the Masses
Since we got our first hands-on look at Google Wave in June, the platform has matured nicely. While some early reviews panned it as buggy and slow, today's version of Google Wave is very stable and fast.
As Google puts it, "A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where individuals communicate and work together in a multimedia environment - the wave itself." Users can, for example, write documents, but also insert maps, photos, web feeds, and widgets. Most of the usage we have seen so far has been more akin to a well-structured chat room, but once a more mainstream audience gets its hands on Wave, we will likely see a wider range of usage scenarios.
Google Wave has also managed to attract a large number of third-party developers by now who have programmed a wide range of new robots for Wave. These range from the weird, like a robot that translates every wave into Swedish Chef speak, to more useful features like URL shorteners and an anti-spam application.
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This is what we've been waiting to hear...
Finally :)
The Swedish Chef translator example pretty well sums up Wave's current sophistication level. :) At this point, Wave is just not "there" yet in terms of being ready for serious business. On the other hand, Wave is truly inspiring in how it's pushing the boundaries of what's possible as a web application.
Seriously, I have a hard time waiting for Wave. I "need" it now. Especially for a course I'll be teaching.
Late September wouldn't be too bad a timing, since the course starts on September 12. But it's sometimes a bit tricky to unleash tools onto a whole group of people before having experience with them ourselves.
For one thing, I wish my university could get Wave. We do have Google Apps, though it's not very active. It's not necessarily a high-profile university either, in terms of such technology. But that's part of what would make Wave stand out, in terms of educational tools.
I also applied for Wave on my domain. Apart from a few Google Sites pages and a podcast hosted on WordPress.com, I haven't done much with that domain. But I'd like to use it in relation with my course, if Wave is available on it.
With up to 105 students, I should be able to get an interesting experience out of Wave. For one thing, I'm focusing the semester on critical thinking and collaborative learning. Wave would be a useful tool in this context.
I can just imagine it: we could all post waves ahead of class and these could be edited collaboratively in class, with a main wave showing up on the screen in front of the class. Not that every student will be using a computer or handheld device. But there would be enough people to type in what seems relevant. And it'd be easy to identify who wrote what.
I'll be podcasting the lectures. These could also be integrated in waves.
We'll also be using a Wikibook as part of the required material for the course (along with a printed textbook). Wave would make it easy to collaborate on those wikibook chapters.
And we're using Moodle, which does make it possible to integrate outside material.
If there were a way to plead with Google, I'd do it.
I'm glad to see this exciting news.
Another google wave update... :)
Waiting for Original Product to be launched....