Now I understand Google Wave!

Here’s the problem: Many of us came to Google Wave via Twitter. And we kind of expected it to be like Twitter as a result. But it isn’t. And many of us simply played around with it for a few days, then consigned it to an occasional glance. The novelty of watching people type in real time soon wore off.

Remember when people were practically begging for invitations? You can’t give them away now! (But do ask in comments if you want one!)

It was only a few days ago that I finally realized that Wave was the answer to a big problem. You see, I’ve been working with Nathan Hangen on our book Beyond Blogging. (If you haven’t yet done it, go and join the mailing list here right now – it launches on 28th December).

Nathan and I live quite a few time zones apart, and that has made the project interesting to say the least. I’d start work first thing in the morning and fire a load of emails with questions,updates and issues off to him as I thought of them. Then he’d get up and reply to each, and we’d have a brief window where we were effectively online together, so we could Skype, or Google chat as well as Email. Then I’d go to bed and he would do exactly the same via email. It was all working quite well, but we each wasted so much time looking in various “areas” for our data. If I needed to check anything, I’d first have to remember where we talked about it, and when. Did we agree who’s doing what in a chat? On Skype? Via Email?

Here’s a scary statistic: In one seven day period, we had 51 separate conversation threads in just one of my email accounts!

The solution was under our noses – Google Wave. With one Wave, everything we think about or want to communicate is in one place. When I get up in the morning, I can “replay” the Wave and see what Nathan was doing while I was asleep. I can answer each section and then he can do the same when he starts work. We can send each other files and links, and best of all, the whole thread is there, so all the information we need is in one place, all the time.

I finally understand Wave, and for any collaborative project, it is simply amazing. I would imagine the more people involved in the project, the more effective and time saving using Wave will become. Don’t consign Wave to the “interesting, but dull bin” just yet.