Google Wave Possibilities

WaveLook:Google Wave in Outlook

2010-07-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

Pooja Srinivas has called my attention to WaveLook, a self-described "free plugin that integrates Google Wave into your Outlook inbox." If you use MS Outlook 2007, this plugin has the potential to unify your e-mail and Wave inboxes. Waves can be viewed and edited from within Outlook. And multiple Wave accounts can appear in the same inbox. IO Revolution, Inc., the maker of WaveLook, also promises that the plugin syncs with Microsoft Exchange servers. In addition, the company is working on what they are calling the "Wave Revolution Server." This server is being developed to enable you to host corporate waves securely on an internal network.

I don't have Outlook 2007, so I haven't been able to try WaveLook. But from screenshots I have seen, it appears to be a nice integration of Wave and e-mail for Outlook users, which could make Wave more widely useful in an enterprise environment.

Wavespace, Waveforums and Wavelot

2010-06-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

In this post I am highlighting three experiments that feature different ways of using or presenting waves. As far as I know, they are not currently available for all to use, but their creators may "open source" them in the future.

Wavespace is an experiment by Dragon Silicon which puts two waves side-by-side on a webpage. The main document on which participants are collaborating is in the wave on the left and a second wave for commenting and brainstorming is in the wave on the right. The purpose, in the words of Dragon, is "to better coordinate development, and keep the main document clean, and blog-ready." It appears to me that something similar to Wavespace can be achieved by giving people the URL of two side-by-side waves, but Wavespace has the advantage of being a page outside of Wave.

Waveforums is a second experiment by Dragon. This lists all the waves of a given Google group (in this case, Wave Watchers) in a forum-like array. It is a nice set-up for using Wave as a forum.

Wavelot, created by Anders, is the third experiment I wish to highlight. Anders describes it as follows: "Wavelot allows you to browse, edit and create public Google Waves sorted in sections of popular topics, such as News, Politics and so on." The navigation panel on the left side of the Wavelot page is designed to match the format of the embedded wave. I can envision the Wavelot format as being useful for developing a series of waves on subtopics in a given field of study

These experiments give us just a taste of some of the creative ways in which Google Wave may be adapted and used in the future.

Article on Using Wave in the Classroom

2010-06-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

This article, "Teaching with Google Wave," by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, is worthy of a careful reading by anyone interested in learning how Google Wave can be used in the classroom. The article focuses primarily on using Wave to have students take notes collaboratively. But it hints at other ways Wave can be used as well. (Note that Ms. Fitzpatrick does not appear to know about the Ferry robot, which would have allowed her students to export their notes to Google Docs.) My thanks to Lisa Miller for calling this article to my attention.

Embedding Waves in Successive Blog Posts in Blogger

2010-05-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

The possibility of embedding one wave per blog post is an attractive one, because the wave can then be used for real-time commenting on each new post. However, if you just use the code generated by the Wave Element (see the post of May 1 below), some waves will be superimposed on posts, rendering them unreadable. The work-around, for each successive blog post, is to change the div id "waveframe" to "waveframe1" in the code wherever "waveframe" appears. ("Waveframe" appears four times in the code generated by the Wave Element.) By doing this, I have been able to embed waves in successive posts without any superimposition. If you use the code generated by Wave Element in multiple posts, the div id will need to be altered each time (i.e., "waveframe1" for one post, "waveframe2" for the next. [Thanks to Pooja Srinivas for showing me the work-around.]

Embedding a Wave in Blogger (and Other Webpages), Part 3

2010-05-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

Luciano Santa Brigida has brought to my attention another (and better) way of embedding a wave in Blogger and in other webpages. Google Web Elements has a page on embedding a Wave element. By pasting the web address of the wave you want to embed in the "Wave" box provided on the Web Elements page, the embedding code you need is generated farther down on the page. This code can then be copied and pasted into blog posts on Blogger or into other web pages. You may have to adjust the width and height. For the wave embedded here, I have adjusted the width to 420px. Thanks to Luciano for this tip!

Integrating Wave and WordPress

2010-04-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

Luciano Santa Brígida has started a blog entitled "High Tides" that has as its theme "Integrating Wave and WordPress." In his first post he writes, "We are just about to begin testing how to make a WP blog integrated with Google Wave. I hope we can come to great solutions regarding this integration here." Another quote from the second post: "It would be great to have one single platform where you could type and publish to anywhere including your blog. That's where wave comes in." A third post gives directions for embedding a wave with each WordPress blog post.

Luciano has wisely structured the waves he embeds: the root blip is "Public read-only" and the discussion takes place in the "private reply" of a second blip, to which "Public full access" has been added. This assures that the blog content of the root blip cannot be vandalized. If the discussion in the private reply is vandalized, its parent blip can be deleted, and the root blip will remain intact.

For those who use WordPress for blogging and are interested in integrating Google Wave, High Tides should be a very helpful resource.

Embedded Waves Can Now Be Viewed by Non-Wavers

2010-04-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

Pooja Srinivas reported to me and others that she was able to view the wave embedded on a page at her website Artistic Waves even though she was not signed in to Google Wave. Instead of showing her Google Wave account in the top right-hand corner, the embedded wave had "Anonymous." I found the same thing to be true for the waves embedded in this blog. I could still view them, even though not signed in to Wave. Apparently this means that non-Wavers will now be able to view, but not edit, waves embedded in webpages. This is great news, because it means that non-Wavers will at least be able to see the content of embedded public waves. Seeing the content may kindle in them a desire to become Wavers themselves.

One user has reported that this new feature does not work in Internet Explorer, using the Chrome Frame plug-in. But it appears to work in other browsers. Also, just pasting a Wave URL in the browser address bar does not enable non-Wavers to view a wave. Those who do that will get the Google Wave sign-in page. Thus it appears that this feature works only for embedded waves. Even so, this is a significant step toward giving non-Wavers a window into what is going on in the public part of the world of Google Wave.

Wave - Email Integration That Allows Non-Wavers to Participate in Wave

2010-03-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be great if there were a way to enable people who don't have a Google Wave account to participate in Google Wave? That has now become a reality thanks to a new robot that was announced yesterday by the WaveDOTto team. The robot is called Mr. Ray (mr-ray@appspot.com).

An extension installer for Mr. Ray adds an item to the drop-down menu just to the right of the "New Wave" button on the Search panel. The item reads "New Wave with e-mail participants." This enables you to start a new wave with Mr. Ray as a participant and to add people by e-mail address to the wave. You can also add the Mr. Ray robot to your contact list and then add it as a participant in waves you have already started. The robot will then invite you to add e-mail participants by means of their e-mail addresses. Those added to a wave as e-mail participants will receive an e-mail with a link that will allow them to view the wave. They will not be able to edit blips in the wave. But they will be able to reply to any blip in the wave. Thanks to Mr. Ray, their replies will automatically appear in the wave in Google Wave. E-mail participants will also receive a fresh e-mail in their e-mail inbox whenever a wave they are participating in is updated in Google Wave. The Mr. Ray webpage has two helpful videos that illustrate the use of the robot.

This is a fine robot, which should make Google Wave more widely useful. I am looking forward to using it with some of my less tech-savvy friends!

Exporting from Wave to Google Documents Using the Ferry Robot

2010-03-29T18:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wished that there was an easy way to export material from Google Wave to Google Documents? A new Wave robot called "Ferry" makes this possible. The robot is available via an extension installer in the wave Discuss: Ferry. Once the extension has been installed, you can open any wave, go into the edit mode, and click on the icon that says "Export this wave using Ferry." At this point the robot should be added to the wave and a blip should appear at the end of the wave. In this blip you will be asked whether you want to export the root blip or the entire wave. You will also be asked whether you want to keep Google Docs updated via automatic sync or manual sync. After making your selections, you will be given a link that will enable you to grant Ferry access to Google Docs. After granting access, a message will appear informing you that the wave (or root blip) has been exported successfully. You will also be given a link to the new Google document that Ferry has created. Images will not be exported. An explanatory video is available here.

The creator of the Ferry robot lists the following features:

- Ferry makes secure requests to your Google Docs account without having access to your Google account or password.
- Ferry exports font styles and sizes, text alignment, headers, bullets, images and links.
- You can choose whether or not to export the entire wave (all the blips) or just the root blip (the first message).
- Several participants can use Ferry in the same wave.
- Ferry will continue to sync the Google Docs document automatically or manually if you choose so.
- Ferry is easy to install and easy to use.

The Ferry robot has been entered in Mashable's Google Wave API Challenge. I, for one, am impressed with it.

Exporting Material from Wave to MS Word 2007

2010-03-14T14:44:00.000-07:00

In my post of March 1 I mentioned the robot developed by Jason Harrop, which enables you to import documents into Google Wave. Jason has now added a feature to the robot, which makes it possible to export the contents of a single wave blip to a Microsoft Word document. At the moment, this works only for the .docx format (MS Word 2007). But I was impressed with how well it works. Jason says that not only text but also images and tables should be reproduced in the resulting .docx document. This exporting function could be quite helpful for groups that use Wave to collaborate in the writing of a document and then want to make their work available in a MS Word format.

Jason's instructions for exporting are in his wave How to Import a Microsoft Office Word Document , in the blip entitled: "export Wave to docx."

Live Note!

2010-03-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

Franck Verrot has a robot that he has created for the new Google Wave API. It is called Live Note (live-note@appspot.com). The robot makes it possible to send notes into Google Wave in three different ways: via a web-page, via e-mail and via chat. So now you can put notes in Google Wave using your smart phone. Live Note is still in the testing stage, but I was able to create notes in Wave in all three ways. Franck has a wave about his new robot and also a blog post. Check them out!

Importing Documents into Google Wave

2010-03-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Jason Harrop has developed a robot that does a good job of importing documents into Google Wave. The robot supports MS Word documents, in both .docx and .doc formats. And it now is able to import Open Office text documents (.odt/.sxw). The process of importing is relatively straightforward. First, add docxwave@appspot.com to your contacts. Then create a new wave and add the robot as a participant. A File Upload form should appear in response. Jason says, "If the form doesn't appear, try removing the robot from the wave and re-adding it." Follow the instructions that are in the File Upload form, and the document you have uploaded should appear in the wave. Jason's waves are: HOWTO import a Microsoft Office Word document and HOWTO import an OpenOffice Text document . Here is a wave I made, into which I imported a demonstration .docx file from Jason, using his robot: Demonstration of Importing a Document .

Embedding a Wave in Blogger, Part 2

2010-02-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

Rangoo Srinivas has called my attention to another method of embedding a wave in a blog. This involves pasting code from the Embeddy robot directly into a post. Instructions are provided by Pooja Srinivas here. I will attempt to follow them in this post, using a copy of Daniel Allen's Ultimate Wave Reference wave. (In following the instructions, I encountered one glitch. One line of code provided by Embeddy left out quotations marks around the wave address. After you add the marks, the address will appear in the following form: 'googlewave.com!w+zpOmWVuWA' ) For the wave embedded below, I used the following dimensions: style="width: 420px; height: 420px".

Update: Today (March 6) I came across a robot (blog-bot@appspot.com) that produces a "clone" of Embeddy, except that the necessary quotation marks mentioned above are included. This means that you can follow Pooja's instructions, but use Blog-bot instead of Embeddy, and the instructions will work without any glitch.

Embedding a Wave in Blogger

2010-02-23T07:44:00.000-08:00

Below these posts I have embedded the wave "Embedding a Wave in Blogger." You will need a Google Wave account to view it. It contains step-by-step instructions for embedding a wave in your Blogger blog. The wave is based on some very helpful directions for embedding a wave in Blogger on this webpage by Tejash. Tejash also explains how to get the Wave ID needed for embedding in an earlier post listed on the left sidebar of his page. I used the following dimensions to make the wave fit in the gadget space: "width: 460px; height: 420px".

The Purpose of This Blog

2010-02-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

My purpose in this blog is to explore the possibilities for using Google Wave in a variety of settings. My hope is that by sharing my discoveries with you, my readers, you will gain an appreciation of the possibilities for communication and collaboration that Google Wave presents.