What else would you talk about when you land on Wave but ... Wave?


I'm in about 20 Waves now (posted discussions where lots of people contribute) and the main topic is How to Use This Darn Google Wave.


Second topic of note: Social Media.


And third: Adelaide's new social media grouping, #socadl, and what its objectives are.


Wave is quite difficult to read right now. Waves tend to become very lengthy, and it's not obvious how to dive in and head straight to the updates only. I tend to re-read posts and become lost. (@theskullcave recently gave me the hot tip: using your PgDown key to get to the end. Ooops. Thanks. See what an expert I am, peeps).


Everyone's new to Wave. So very few of us know how to organise it yet. Discussions go off on tangents and the Wave just gets longer and longer.


In time, I guess we'll learn how to focus. To post on one very clear topic (or document) and stick to it. (Or how to use our keyboard to greater effect).


As one Twitter friend put it: Wave seems too much like work. (@derekandkong). True, so far. But I'm going to stick with it to see how it evolves. Same as I did with Twitter.

Okay, part II of my thoughts on Google Wave ...

I've been on Wave every day of the past week now. So I have more to share on its usability. This is by no means a thorough evaluation of all features - just some observations, including some shared with me by others.

When you first sign up to Wave, adding contacts is a priority. No contacts=no waving=why am I here? Right? And it's not immediately apparent HOW you add contacts. If you do manage to spot the lower left Manage Contacts area, and click +, then you should feel very satisfied with yourself.

But then Wave asks you to input your contacts. What do you type in? Which email address? Well, it needs to be a signed-up user of Wave. It needs to contain their @googlewave address. Cause it's the new centre of the world, right? Ahem.

So that's been the first stumbling block for some people: typing in other email addresses and desperately trying to find their networks. They've even been using gmail addresses, thinking that would work. But no cigar.

Considering that a lot of new Wave users have just been sending Wave invites to friends (using their standard email addresses), it does get confusing. One little line of instruction there, or alt text, would help.

Okay : once you're in Wave and want to 'see what it does', you need to Create a Wave or, if you're very lucky, one will show up because somebody has added you there.

You can Add Contacts to your Wave to get some discussion going.

What topic? Well, what topic do you think?

More to come soon ....