Basically, each and every time we get a new piece of tech to play with, we’re going to give it a good “Looking Into”. We’ll review it, look at ways it could be used, and let you know our views about it.

This time, we’re looking into Google Wave, the brand new collaborative tool from the guys and girls at Google!

What is Google Wave?

Description From Wikipedia: 

Google Wave is a self-described “personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009. It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, spelling/grammar checking, automated translation among 40 languages, and numerous other extensions.

With conventional E-mail with multiple participants, each person would get a copy of the message. If each of them send a reply back to you which needs a response, things can become messy and people could get “left out of the loop” – Never good if it’s something important you’re planning.

Google Wave is a hosted conversation. There is one copy of the message, that multiple participants can view, edit and reply to, in one place! Plus, its all done directly from your web browser, with no additional software to install** – It also includes live text updating. You can see people editing the wave in real time!

So, what can Google Wave do?

Google Wave is extremely useful for collaborative editing. Here at The Carter Group, we’ve been testing it out recently with our reports and design breifs. We can simply add our coders and designers to the wave, and quickly and efficiently work on script, and discuss UI features directly in one place. No messages are lost in your inbox, and should you be added to the wave later than everyone else, the excellent “playback” feature allows you to do just that. You can play back the message to see how it evolved from the first message! No having to ask people to fill you in on what you’ve missed!

Wave Gadgets & Robots

There are quite a few Wave Gadgets around at the moment. Wave Gadgets, are little scripts that can be added into a wave with the click of a button! Wave Gadgets include:

Yes, No, Maybe – Great if you’re planning an event or meeting and would like to know who’s attending. You can RSVP by simply clicking “Yes, No or Maybe”

Google Maps – We’re all familiar with Google Maps. The Wave Gadget allows you to insert a google map directly into the wave without having to copy and paste a link or embed code.

Linky - Linky is a robot which is a hidden participant within every wave conversation. When linky detects you have typed a link, it will convert it to a link right away. When inserting a link from YouTube, a small light bulb appears next to the link. Clicking it shows a context menu allowing you to embed the YouTube video directly into the wave with a click!

Tweety – Tweety is a robot. Tweety can be added into a wave as a participant, and allows you to update your twitter status from inside the wave. Using the Twitter API, it also drags in all the latest tweets from the people you follow.

AccuWeather.com - A gadget from accuweather can be easily added into a wave. You very simply set the city you want the weather for and choose a date. It will insert a very nifty looking gadget into the wave, displaying the weather!

Other Gadgets & Robots

There are quite a few gadgets and robots floating around for Google Wave. The Robots are based on very email looking addresses. For example, Tweety, the robot used to update your Twitter status is available at the address: tweety-wave@appspot.com

Just add Tweety as a contact, and drag Tweety into a new wave. After a little bit of configuration (and it really is only a little bit) – Tweety will live inside a wave and allow you to update your Twitter status, and alert you of new Tweets!

The Gadgets are a little bit more difficult to add. You can find a great list of gadgets and robots over at www.wavety.com

Google Wave Gadgets have been minimised to essentials at the moment, so to add 3rd party gadgets, you will need to find the link on wavety, and using the “Add Gadget By URL” button, paste the link into the wave. As far as we are aware, this is only temporary. We understand that you will soon be able to have shortcuts to these 3rd party gadgets.

What We Make of Google Wave

Having had a good play around with Google Wave for the past few weeks, we have found it be a great piece of kit, that is going to become essential for every day use! It does have some issues at the moment, but that is understandable because it’s still in beta. However, as time goes on and more people use Wave, it is only going to improve.

A couple of observations here. At the moment, Google Wave’s live text seems slow and clunky. Using Firefox 3.5 on a 2.6Ghz P4 with 2GB ram, the “as you type” text updates seem to slow the computer performance somewhat. We tried this while having music playing through Spotify, and found that the music would experience breaks while people were editing the wave.

**Google Wave advertises as allowing you to drag and drop photo’s directly from your desktop into a wave. This IS true, however you must have “Google Gears” installed in your web browser to allow this to work.

All in all, Google Wave is truly an innovation, and as time goes on, it’s going to get better and better!

Firstly, we’d like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the brand new website of The Carter Group. We hope you enjoy the new colourful style!

Secondly, we’d like to introduce you to a few new features available throughout the website.

Get A Quote

Beforehand, all quotes were dealt with via our contact form. However, we now have a customised quote form, which will allow us to better understand what you’re looking for, and in turn, provide you with a more accurate quote!

This blog!

We figured it would be a great idea if we started our own blog. Not only to keep you informed of company news and updates, but also so we can post our latest tips and tricks, for you to use! This will include, SEO Talk, a Web Design blog, and a Web Development blog!

Between all these areas, we basically have every little hint and tip covered, so keep checking back. Our designers and coders are going to try and update their sections as often as possible! So, Keep checking back!

With all that out the way.. Welcome to the brand new website of The Carter Group!