Smarterware

Google Wave Versus the Rest, Feature by Feature

Got a great response to last week's frequently asked questions about Google Wave, and it's worth expanding further on the differences between Wave and the current crop of web-based collaboration offerings.

Wave combines features from email, instant messenger, Google Docs, wikis, and forums and throws its own spin on things. For a quick visual of its offerings versus similar tools, check out this feature-by-feature comparison.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Google Wave

The Google Wave Preview has been available to one million+ people for over three months now, but questions about Wave still abound, even by the early adopters who have gotten in and taken it for a test drive.

After publishing a book on everything I know about Wave, I still get many of the same questions I heard back when I started. Even folks usually bullish about new technology still don't understand what they can use Wave for, how to sell it to their friends and co-workers so they have someone to use it with, and how to fit it into their workday.

As much as I'd love it if everyone bought a copy of my book for every person they invite to Wave, reading 102 pages just to "get" a product is ridiculous. So, I've compiled some of the most frequently asked questions I've gotten about Wave and my best (and briefest) answers for them right here in quick-fire format.

Step inside to hear a two-word definition of Wave, what it's useful for, why you'd choose it over similar products, and how to do the things in Wave that most often trip up new users.

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It’s Google Wave Mania Day!

Google's inviting 100,000 people to the Google Wave beta today, which means Twitter is already awash in people asking about and begging for entry (hello, trending topic). For what it's worth, my sources tell me invites won't go out until later in the day U.S. time--remember the Wave team is in Australia. Update: There's no source link, but the Twitter trend explainer in Brizzly says re: Google Wave:

Google has announced that it will be sending out more than 100,000 invites to Google Wave. Each of those 100,000 invites will come with 8 invites to invite other people. The release time for these invitations (originally 16:00 GMT) has been moved back to "late in the day US time on Sept 30".

In the meantime, you can sate your Wave curiosity without an invite. Check out my in-depth high-res screenshot tour of Wave over at Lifehacker this morning. Like I said in the post, Wave is only as useful as the people who are in it, so if you get an invitation and the privilege of giving out invitations, do use them very wisely. For background, see also my previous Wave posts: The Google Wave Highlight reel, and Google Wave Q&A.

Google Wave First Look [Lifehacker]