

Ask HN: IF you were using Google Wave today, how would you use it? - kiriappeee

I'm writing up a blog post and need some answers from the community as to how people used or thought google wave should be used. I'm not really looking for opinions on what google could have done better. Just want to know how you tried to use it/how you used it/how you would use it if it was still alive and supported today. Feel free to go into specifics (yes I read about the apache movement)
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Andrenid
I used it extensively from the early-invite I got through to when they
announced it was being scrapped. It was invaluable to me, and I was really
upset that it might be going away (and subsequently am really happy now Apache
has taken it up).

I used it daily for work, organising lots of small projects collaboratively
with clients.

I used it personally, organising with friends the coming weekends happenings,
or brainstorming ideas with them for web projects etc.

I also used it among my family to keep track of various things... errands,
ideas, etc.

For a while, it had pretty much replaced 90% of my email usage.

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kiriappeee
Thanks. Care to elaborate on some of that stuff? Did you upload documents for
collaboration? or did you work through google docs and link it into wave
conversations?

How did you get your family on board with you to work with wave?

What was your first impression when you came online (and probably just like
me) and found no one you could interact with immediately?

~~~
Andrenid
I used it in replacement of Google Docs, instead of alongside it. Of course
sometimes I had Google Docs I needed to reference, so i'd link them or embed
them, but for the most part I did my writing of documents directly into Wave.
I work very openly with a team of people, so I liked this due to Waves
"better" (in my opinion) methods of collaborative writing. Being able to play-
back their edits and changes, etc.

My family are generally pretty geeky, and a few already got invites by
applying early. I was also one of the lucky ones who was given a fair few
invites (I guess by jumping on board so early?) so I used them for family as
my work-mates already had applied themselves. I found that even my non-geeky
family picked it up quite quickly. My technically-illiterate brother ("Will my
CD work in the 'CD ROM' drive? It doesn't say ROM on my CD") managed to do all
the basics, including editing posts, but of course anything beyond adding a
post, replying to a post, or editing a post got a bit tricky, and replies
would end up all over the place (that WAS a huge issue, getting replies to
land in just the right place).

I was pretty much speechless when I found out Google wasn't doing the Gmail
thing, and letting us instantly invite anyone we wanted in real-time. Having
to send invites, then wait days for them to be activated, meant I spent a LOT
of time talking to myself in Blips, just to play with it.

I still stand by Wave being revolutionary, just launched really badly and
dropped way too soon. Google has left a lot worse projects linger around for a
lot longer.

Wave needs to be a tab in Gmail, like Buzz is. It needs to be "available" to
anyone who has a Google account (via invites is fine, to limit it to people
who really want to use it at first, but make the invites instant). People need
time to get used to it, it's the way humans are with change.

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TallGuyShort
I wanted to use it for group projects at school, as it seemed like a really
good combination of IM (interactive and fast) and email (permanent and
viewable at any time), integrated with the ability to share documents, etc...
It would make that kind of collaboration so much easier, but it never worked
out because no one in any of my classes had heard of Google Wave. I did get to
use it a little bit at work, and was a little disappointed by it, but I don't
think there's a better tool for coordinating a small group.

~~~
kiriappeee
Thanks.

Follow up question. If someone built an extension for interacting with people
outside of the wave say by email (yes what they tried to do away with) or
maybe sms, then do you think things would have worked out with the school
projects scenario?

~~~
TallGuyShort
I doubt it - the benefit comes in the fact that IM's happen in real time but
are saved for anyone not online. Forwarding it through SMS and email just
wouldn't do, I think. If no one had heard of Google Wave, I think they'd be
just as scared to start getting lots of emails 'through' it, and no one would
actually use the functionality it offers.

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mcgeadyd
I actually loved google wave. I'm the type of person who works on multiple
projects at the same time. So this usually means spending time trawling
through my email inbox to find missing emails. wave kept everything from the
same project in the same place! I was actually really useful, although people
just weren't so in to it because it was over-hyped and took a little bit of
time to get used to.

Dave

~~~
kiriappeee
Thanks Dave.

Following up on that. Did the whole "see your friends type as they go" feature
ever really benefit you?

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bartman
I worked on a UML/Business Process editor for Google Wave. Apart from the tool
([http://www.processwave.org/2010/05/processwaveorg-
editor.htm...](http://www.processwave.org/2010/05/processwaveorg-editor.html))
we used Wave for all kinds of project planning and internal collaboration:
Meeting minutes, decision processes, SCRUM diary, travel planning, dividing
costs of lunches.

We played with the document sharing feature, but finding Waves worked so badly
that we never found what we were looking for. For all kinds of project
documentation and notes it rocked though. We all worked in the same room, but
our supervisors were a few rooms away and often commented on stuff inside Wave
and started discussions (we had inside Wave).

I would use Wave as a more flexible wiki replacement today, focussing on team-
internal collaboration and documentation of decisions and technical things.

edit: wrong link

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thorax
We use it for shared notes in our weekly status conference call. Status was
great as you could see team members tweaking descriptions of subproject status
where they shared work, etc. A lot faster than seeing the notes later or
interrupting for something not worth stopping the speaker to correct.

On the fun side, with another group we use it extensively for D&D discussions
where we need in-line comments/party-voting, etc. We take live quest notes
together and there's all sorts of data being captured there that would be lost
or post-merged later.

As Google has implemented the existing Wave, it's a great multi-person
brainstorming and note tool. I really do love it for those and haven't found
any alternative that works quite as well... we tried it out on a lark and it
just became too useful and natural for all sorts of shared tasks.

~~~
kiriappeee
thanks for the insight into how you used the real time. And pretty cool way
you actually used Wave. just so you know :)

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sz
What it was intended for -- to replace email and IM. Problem was that it
didn't integrate with existing stuff, the real time typing actually made it
unsuitable to replace email since the other side can replay everything, and
other people editing your messages = loss of continuity.

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mswen
we tried a pilot using it as a tool for a 3 person initiative with a fourth
checking in occasionally. It was pretty easy to start and seemed useful in the
earliest stages of brainstorming and posting things between our regular calls.
As the number of attachments and posts increased we experienced speed issues
and we gradually started reverting back to email, IM and to a certain degree
Dropbox. The final nail in the coffin was the information that Google wasn't
going to continue support. But our small team trying it out in pilot mode was
already moving away from it.

Its funny how little usability issues can annoy you just enough to give
something up, even though you like some of the features.

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jdp23
we used it at my startup for several months to replace email, discussion
forums, and wiki-based sharing. i loved it; others found the UI so hard to use
(and buggy) that we wound up abandoning it

we never used the document uploads -- they didn't work reliably for everybody
at first, so we used dropbox instead. also most people hated the see-as-you-
type feature.

~~~
kiriappeee
thanks,

That brought something that didn't come up so far in the discussion. What sort
of bugs did you experience. And what was the most difficult part of the UI?

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DanielBMarkham
I would use it for small project documentation and collaboration. It's great
for that, and I'd have used it for that a lot more if Google hadn't insisted
on keeping the data.

~~~
kiriappeee
Thank Daniel,

Follow up question. If you have seen the videos of real time editing, do you
think working on the entire document's text within the wave would be a good
way of making use of wave?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
To some degree, yes, but I haven't used it like that.

I think the collaboration indicated in those videos doesn't match up with
reality. Who wants to watch while somebody takes meeting notes? A better use
is sort of a delayed-simultaneous approach, where the discussion is had over
the conference call/Skype and somebody volunteers to be scribe. Everybody can
then follow along if they wish while the notes are taken.

But I don't see the real-time hand-off stuff as being very useful, at least
not in most of my teams' situations.

