Google Wave

[lilith]

Anyone using it? :)
I just signed up for an invitation. But, knowing you guys, I'd figure someone here has been using it for at least a year now!!! :p

http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html#video

[Zaphod]

lol... not quite a year, just over a few weeks now. I signed up back when they did their io conference and just got the invite a few weeks ago. I haven't played with it too much though as I've been slammed with real work. But, my initial impressions were that it has the potential to revolutionize collaboration with its real-time updates. Also, the fact that they were thinking along the security lines when it was built will go a long way to helping them get into the corporate world. Plus the simplicity with which waves are created/edited/etc. is going to be huge. But, it also has the potential for confusing the crap out of people and therefore not get used. I think that is going to be one of the biggest sticking points, wave navigation. Right now, in the limited amount of fiddling I've done, navigating through a wave of two people is easy enough, but I can only imagine what will happen when you have a wave of hundreds or thousands! I don't know if you remember a product that was out years ago called Lotus Improv, but it reminds me a lot of that with its free-form data. Improv never really caught on back then, but today's users are generally more computer savvy, so they may pick this up without a hitch. I'm excited to see what kinds of things 3rd party devs build on wave, since that is what Google keeps saying is going to be what really makes it shine. I can see a lot of social sites (i.e. Facebook, MySpace) not liking wave since it kind of has the same functionality built in right from the start. Overall though, I'd say Wave will be a hit and just one more step in Google World Domination! :)

[lilith]

Would it work to share an excel document? I'm trying to figure out a way to share an excel with about 6 other people. I tried Google docs a few months ago and it was a nightmare! :o I use google docs all of the time myself but just couldn't get the share thing to work with 4 other people. We finally just emailed each other... bleh. I can't do that with this new document. It's too big. I want to be able to post it somewhere where everyone can get at it and edit it. Any ideas?

[Dr. Death]

MSN Live has centalized document storage capabilities. Create a group with all the people who need to share the document. You can also have a common chat room where they can go at will, no need to invite everyone each time to chat. The group gets a web site where you can post, among other things, documents to share.

Solving the version skew problems that comes from multiple editors is your problem, unless you set up a specialized document management system, like CVS.

[lilith]

Maybe I'm in the wrong place... Windows Office Live. I created an account, uploaded my document to a workspace and shared it with somebody. From my office computer, I can open it and edit it.

The person I shared it with can only view it. I can only view it when I'm at my second computer. I keep getting a message that to edit the document I have to close all browsers and re-open them. I not only did that several times, I re-booted. Still can't edit the document after reloading the software they said I need.

It's still in Beta. It's not quite ready IMHO. The other ppl in the group aren't quite as motivated as I am. They'll give up long before they even see the document. :p

[Dr. Death]

Not office live...

http://groups.live.com/?showUnauth=1&lc=1033

Click create group or click groups under "Other" on the menu. Not sure what it will look like to you; it depends on whether you are signed in or not, and whether you are already in a group if you are signed in.

[Zaphod]

Yes, Wave would work, but it's entirely different from what you would normally see. The way it works, I believe, is that you would need to create the document within Wave and then you would have a living document that the people you specify could edit as needed, in real-time, with complete accountability, which is very cool. What I don't know is how it works if you were to say, upload a Word document. I'll have to test that scenario, just haven't had time yet. I imagine it will work like DD said, as a CVS. The other issue is that, well, it isn't generally available yet. :(

[Zaphod]

Yes, Wave would work, but it's entirely different from what you would normally see. The way it works, I believe, is that you would need to create the document within Wave and then you would have a living document that the people you specify could edit as needed, in real-time, with complete accountability, which is very cool. What I don't know is how it works if you were to say, upload a Word document. I'll have to test that scenario, just haven't had time yet. I imagine it will work like DD said, as a CVS. The other issue is that, well, it isn't generally available yet. :(

I take it back, I just tested with a simple txt file and there is no file checking of any kind. Once you attach a file to a wave, that's it, it is static. I suspect, or at least hope, it's simply the fact that Wave is still a Preview product. We'll see.

[lilith]

Okay, well, I wasted about 4 hours on Office Live, then another 2 hours on Groups Live. Neither are really ready to do what I wanted to do. Couldn't upload the file I wanted. Although, Groups Live seemed to be a bit more complete and has more functionality than Office Live.

I just got an invitation to Google Wave, which was not generated by my request to them a few weeks. A friend sent me an invitation. I was not able to upload a file to a wave there either. I did see the files tab, but it was grayed out and not working.... bleh! I finally just attached my document to an email. Seems a bit outdated. I mean, with all of these online meeting tools, there must be a better way! :o