I have been fortunate enough to secure a GoogleWave account. Although it is in Beta release to the public I feel it necesserry to make a little blog about it.
What is GoogleWave?
I'll be honest with you. I had no idea what it was until i had received my invite.
Even after logging in i was not so sure. It was then, that i decided to read up about how to send a wave which kind of confirmed my hunches (may i add i didn't read about it before hand).
To sum it up in a nutshell it is like a real time private forum to you and your friends. When i say real time i mean you can actually see your friend typing the message letter by letter. You can drag and drop pictures/mpegs in to the Wave for your friends to see.
Is that it?
Well... it is still in beta release and i suppose there will be more functionallity to be added. It is very versitile, you can edit posts and edit other peoples posts which could make it useful for minute taking on a business scale.
Widgets?
Yes... widgets can be added to your wave. the only 2 currently available is the "Yes/No" widget and the "Map" widget. GoogleWave allows you to add these widgets in to your Wave.
For example i wanted to know if anyone wanted to come to the pub. I could send a GoogleWave out saying "Any one coming to the pub?" then i'd add in the "Yes/No" widget which gives the options Yes, No or Maybe. Fellow members of the wave could then select as applicible. In the same Wave someone may suggest we meet in a pub and add the Map widget to the Wave to show everyone where it is.
Issues?
Sadly, there are some issues yet to be ironed out by Google however, however that's the whole point of it being a beta release so they can fix them.
Conclusion
I like it, there is a lot that can be done with it, however unless people are willing to try new things with it, it just wont take off liek Twitter or Facebook. However it will have a great role to play in the future of social networking.