Google Wave is featured with a real-time typing functionality. Not everybody is too happy about that:

Farhad Manjoo writing in Slate about Google Wave

The trouble is, everything you type into Wave is transmitted live, in real time—every keystroke was getting sent to Zach just as I hit it. This made me too self conscious to get my thoughts across.

… Maybe I should just delete what I’d written and say, “Twitter works because it’s simple.” But I couldn’t do that, because Zach was watching me. He could see me struggling right now—he could see that I’d gotten myself stuck in a textual cul-de-sac and that I was desperately searching for a way out without looking foolish. Now I saw Zach beginning to type: “Don’t let the live-typing get you down!” The game was up; what was the point of making a point now? I ended my thought clumsily and then resolved never to attempt to say anything very deep on Wave.

Jens Alfke @ Thought Palace:

Part of the problem (…) is that live typing is one of those Cool Demo Features that looks really awesome when showing off the app. Features like that can be dangerous because they are legitimately very useful during the app’s gestation, when exciting demos are a key survival trait; but then they can’t be removed later on because they’re so well-known, even if they turn out to be useless. Sometimes these features aren’t actually harmful to the user experience, they just make the code more complex and harder to maintain. Instant typing is both, unfortunately. (The clever sync algorithms and rapid-fire network messages Wave uses would be needed even without live typing, but the fact that they have to run on every few keystrokes, not just every minute or so, pushes those things so much harder.)

What do you think about real live editing?

Ben Parr of Mashable wrote an excellent, extensive introduction into Google Wave. One element of this introduction was the Google Wave Terminology. “Google Wave actually has its own lingo – yes, you have to learn a few definitions if you’re going to really understand this new communication platform. Having knowledge of these terms will help you understand more about Google’s newest project.”

- Wave: A wave, specifically, refers to a specific threaded conversation. It can include just one person, or it can include a group of users or even robots (explained below). The best comparison I can make is that it’s like your entire instant messaging (IM) history with someone. Anything you’ve ever discussed in a single chat or conversation is a wave.

- Wavelet: A wavelet is also a threaded conversation, but only a subset of a larger conversation (or a wave). It’s like a single IM conversation – a small part of a larger conversation and a larger history. Wavelets, though, can be created and managed separately from a wave.

- Blip: Even smaller than a Wavelet, a Blip is a single, individual message. It’s like a single line of an IM conversation. Blips can have other blips attached to them, called children. In addition, blips can either be published or unpublished (once again, it’s sort of like typing out an IM message but not yet sending it).

- Document: A document actually refers to the content within a blip. This seems to refer to the actual characters, words, and files associated with a blip.

- Extension: An extension is a mini-application that works within a wave. So these are the apps you can play with while using Wave. There are two main types of extenisons: Gadgets and Robots

- Gadgets: A gadget is an application users can participate with, many of which are built on Google’s OpenSocial platform. A good comparison would be iGoogle gadgets or Facebook applications.

- Robots: Robots are an automated participant within a wave. They can talk with users and interact with waves. They can provide information from outside sources (i.e. Twitter) or they can check content within a wave and perform actions based on them (i.e. provide you a stock quote if a stock name is mentioned).

- Embeded Wave: An embeded wave is a way to take a Google Wave and the conversation within it and place it on your website. Users could use this as a chatroom, as a way to contact you, or for something more.

You might have seen the long introduction video, but this video by Google is a little bit (ten times ) shorter.

This is an interesting video for yourself if you haven’t seen it yet, but also to show people that are interested, and would like a comprehensive yet under ten minute introduction.

Ever wondered how you could ever find people and public discussion waves about your favorite subject(s)? You are obviously at the right place if you want to discuss its implications for knowledge management, but if you are looking for other communities there is a new site in the air: waverz.com – a public, browsable group aggregator for wave.

There are some spam and badly gardened waves on that list, but also a few good examples, like How Lawyers Will Use Google Wave which contains over over 60 law professionals discussing the applicability of Google Wave for their practice.

There are other groups like:

- Wave Users in South Africa

- 100,000 waves Wave – Say “Hi”

- Wave trying to develop standard tags to categorize the groups

You can auto-add your wave to any group by inviting wavegroupy@appspot.com; the bot automatically adds a group widget, which you can use to browse the neighbourhood, and add/remove your wave to groups. Your wave will automatically listed both on http://www.waverz.com/groups and under the selected groups in the embeddable gadget. (private groups are comming soon).

You have to make sure however your wave is public by adding public@a.gwave.com to your wave. Non-public waves might be removed from this listing. At this moment there are some waves in the overview that did not add one yet.

The directory is not as cleaned-up, rich and comprehensive as it might become in the future, but it is an excellent first step providing overview in the chaos. After the biographical information about the participants is better integrated (through Google Profile Integration?) it is also a great place to meet new wave friends.

And when Google Wave becomes more and more routine, such directories might be an interesting place to discuss everything you can think of. However, again: Effective gardening is key to keep the outcomes focused and meaningful.

Tom Simonite wrote an interesting article on the Psychology of Google Wave. Some highlights of this article are presented here below:

“Early reviews have been positive, and demand for invitations outstrips supply (Google says ours is still on the way). But even for those who have tried and liked it, Wave’s potential is still hard to assess. The problem is that most talk about it is focussed on technology, not people.

(…)

The cultural norms that will shape Wave’s future are yet to be established. But informed crystal-ball gazing is possible, based on what we know about how people use existing technology.

Time tricks

Two of the features of Wave that are likely to alter how people communicate are related to time: it allows users to see others typing live, even if they later delete that text; and a “replay” function plays back the complex tangle of interactions that produced a wave.

Past research has shown that the real-time, synchronous, nature of instant messaging (IM) encourages an informal tone, says Susan Herring, who researches the convergence of computer communication platforms at Indiana University in Bloomington. “It invokes face-to-face communication and encourages people to use conversational strategies,” she explains.

Seeing live typing may accentuate that effect, but Wave can also be asynchronous, like email. “We won’t see the difference between the two types of communication disappear,” says Herring. “More elaborate messages are still possible, but when the other person is online you will be drawn to a more informal style.” The pace and style of communicating with Wave will be more varied than with email.

Held to account

Meanwhile, the novel replay feature may have multiple consequences, says Watts. One is to add significance to Wave messages – just as the fact that people can store emails they have received means writers tend to rein in emotional emphasis they might let rip in spoken or IM chat.

“Replaying a Wave gives an even more tangible and reliable feeling for the history of a relationship,” Herring explains, compared to the way email threading and sorting quickly breaks down, hiding chronology.

Replays may also improve our ability to know the intentions of others – a capacity called theory of mind that is central to the way we communicate. Different communication methods provide different types of evidence that is used to create such models. Because Wave provides multiple ways to transmit that evidence, it may make it easier to model others’ minds. “Watching a Wave replay could help people to imagine what was in the minds of others,” says Watts.

User control

That may also help reduce the misunderstandings that can blight email communication, says Herring: when people don’t pick up that a comment is meant as a joke, for instance. “You have a multiplicity of channels to repair the conversation.”

Watts points out that being able to control what others infer about you is important too, though. By hiding the editing process, emails make it possible to try to control all the evidence others can use to gauge your thoughts.

Only once Wave has enough users for people to use it for real communication will we know how they will react, though.

“The designers have some control, but will also have to wait to see what usage patterns develop and respond to that” says Herring. Watts agrees: “It’s people and organisations that will ultimately determine how Wave is used.”

For the complete article please visit Newsscientist.

We came across a great article on Google Wave by Daniel Teller, and we couldn’t agree more. Below we have a few citations of this article:

“There are countless pundits and other tech gurus describing Google Wave as a disappointment, lately. Most of that seems to come from the fact that nobody seems to get what Wave is for. So they compare it to social media.

Is Wave the next Twitter? Nope. Is it the next Facebook? Nope. Is it going to replace Instant Messengers? Possibly, in some circumstances, but not any time soon.”

(…)

I believe that people who don’t see what Google Wave is for are simply looking at it from the wrong angle. Wave is not a social tool. It’s not Twitter, it’s not GTalk, it’s not Facebook. It was never designed to appeal to the crowds of geeks who are currently trying it out.

Wave is built for the corporate environment. It’s a tool for getting work done. And as far as those go, it’s an excellent tool, even at this very early stage.

It will probably take years before Wave fully penetrates large corporations and replaces the email systems everyone is used to. But it solves so many thorny problems with email that it might well manage to do so, where so many other tentative “email fixes” have failed.

In the meantime, we should stop judging it as a social tool and start looking at how we can use it for real work. Invite your colleagues to it, and get working.”

Follow this link to read the whole article.

This video gives an overview of the most important changes Google Wave will make opposite to traditional e-mail communication.

Photo credit: cookelma edited by Daniele Bazzano

This website is intended for Knowledge Management professionals and other people interested in the usability of Google Wave in supporting organizational knowledge processes, communication and learning.

If you want to share your experiences or search and learn for the lessons learned of others experimenting with Google Wave, this site is the place to be!

We are looking for people who want to help in building this new community!

If you are interested to contribute mail: kmwaves@gmail.com
Obviously we are also available on Google Wave
Ping us here to get more information on being involved: weknowmore.research@googlewave.com

Trying to embed a Google Wave here. However: at this moment this feature seems to work only for the sandbox users of Google Wave.