Google VVave is a brilliant concept, with a simple summary; “Suppose email had been invented today.”
In short, Google VVave extends GMail’s concept of email as a threaded conversation rather than a string of discrete documents. VVave makes every email a collaborative conversation, that blends
- traditional asynchronous discussion (I send you an e-mail, you read it whenever and respond at your convenience)
- real-time chat (we’re both on line, and we talk back and forth, within our email thread)
- social media (where we can embed images, videos, links, etc.)
It feels kinda like Facebook for introverts, where you might want to have a multi-media, multi-threaded conversation that evolves over time with one or a small group of users, but not leave it open to all 138 of your friends (or more, if you’re less of an introvert).
If you want the specifics of what it does and how it does it, I recommend watching the videos Google’s posted. They are fun and watchable and neither technical nor dumbed down.
I just have one problem with Google VVave, and that’s how stingy they’ve been with invites. I got my invite in the second round, and I’ve since “nominated” a few other people, none of whom have received their invites yet.
I understand that it’s beta, I understand that the kinks haven’t been worked out, and it was fun to be one of the first people I knew with a GMail account. But I could email anyone with my GMail account, not just other GMail users. I now have a ingenious collaborative tool, and no collaborators. Huh?
So yeah, Google VVave is brilliant, just not so’s you’d notice.
PS — If any readers already have VVave accounts, let me know. I’m dying to try it.
I have a wave account, from you. I have NO idea what to with it. Please help. Thanks in advance.