I got a Google Wave invite last week. Now that I’ve played around with it for a bit, I’m sold. This thing is awesome. In this post, I’ll say a bit about what google wave is, and then I’ll briefly note a host of great things that philosophers (and other academics) will be able to use wave for.
Google Wave: A Quick Rundown
My very first thought when I saw screen shots of wave was “I don’t understand what the big deal is. It looks like some kind of simplistic hybrid between old school email, discussion boards, and chat rooms. How could this thing be the email-twitter-facebook-blackboard-angel-killer that everyone is claiming?” But that attitude changed once I started looking at the videos. It really changed when I started playing around with it. I’m not sure that it’s a killer, but it’s going to give a lot of services a serious run.
Once you log into wave it doesn’t look very much from an ordinary email program. The neat feature is this main writing unit that they call a wave. Waves, unlike a standard email, can be just about anything you want them to be. A single wave can function like an email to a friend, but your friend can write you back in the email you just sent. If your friend is online, they can reply to you as you’re sending it.
Your email has just turned into a chat room. However, unlike chat rooms, you don’t feel locked into to staying in the chat room. You can bail at any time. If you leave and your friend keeps writing, the wave turns back into an email. When you return, the wave shows up at the top of your inbox like a new message. You can go see what your friend was yammering on about while you had to leave.
You can invite other people to see this email, and they can use the playback feature to see the entire document as it actually unfolded. Then they can start commenting on anything in the wave. The wave has just turned into something like a discussion board, but much better. As more and more people get invited, the simple discussion board can become an entire forum.
So…an email from a friend, turns into a chat room, turns into a discussion board, turns into a forum. The wave morphs back and forth into what you need, when you need it, and it’s all seamless. It only gets as big/complex as you need/want it to be.
Waves are this incredible hybrid of our main forms of online communications – email, discussion boards/forums, instant messaging, and chat rooms. Waves become whichever one of those you need, only if you need it, and at exactly the right moment without you doing anything. The whole slogan – “What email would look like if we had invented it today” makes total sense now.
But there’s so much more you can do with waves than simply use them as an alternative to traditional online communication tools. The ability to embed different web apps/utilities inside a wave, and the ability to embed waves inside other HTML pages makes a wave one of the most versatile web tools I’ve seen in a long time.
Bottom-line: While the interface looks like a simple email tool, your inbox is filled with waves (not emails) and waves are your every-app. And, true to Google form, waves start out simple. Complexity is added only when there is good reason to have it.
Google Wave for Philosophers
I’ll shut up about the general utility of waves. A quick Google search will yield loads of demo videos. Let me talk about specifics. Here’s a quick preview of how I think Google Wave will be useful for philosophers. I’ll come back and elaborate on each of these points, but for now I’ll just bullet everything.
Research
- Co-authoring Papers
- Paper Workshops
- Discussion Groups
- Live Conference Updates/Discussions
- Online Conferences
- Filesharing
- Blogging
- Networking
Teaching
- Total Classroom Management System (on the cheap)
- Live Study/Review Sessions
- Dissertation/Paper Guidance
- Student Writing Workshop Groups
Andy,
This sounds awesome.
I am just curious if there is anything that currently supports Wave on Android? I have heard from people who have the iPhone or Palm Pre, that when they go to the Wave website on their phone, only certain features are working and it sometimes crashes (by crash I mean it closes the mobile browser). I am sure that overtime all phones will support Wave, but I am just curious as to what the current situation is on Android.
It’s still very buggy in Android. I can see which waves have new stuff in them. When I click on a wave, I can’t view anything.
I have, however, been able to start a new wave in Android.
I suspect it will be awhile before we see full-blown capabilities in Android.
I had the same initial impression of Google Wave you did upon hearing about it. I haven’t messed around with it (no invite yet for me), but I hope my impression changes like yours once I get my hands on it!
Great post Andy.
Another use for Wave in the classroom is as a cooperative note-taking tool. You can monitor who edits what, etc. It would be a lot like a wiki, but with the added bonus that it could include all sorts of bots and gadgets (I wonder if someone could make an iterated prisoner’s dilemma game gadget to learn about game theory strategies).
Hi Andy,
Wow, it’s great to see a philosopher with GoogleWave access! I’ve been trying to get an invite since they started sending them. Any chance you could hook a brother up?! (Just in case: I’m at locke.dt@gmail.com)
By the way, I used GoogleDocs this past Summer to have my students write a massively collaborative paper (massive as in 40 students working on one paper). It was a bit too clunky. I’m really looking forward to giving it another try with GoogleWave.
Dustin,
I don’t have any invites. If they give me invites, I’ll send one along. Given your interest in M&E, you’d be a good candidate for a philosophy paper workshop that I’d like to start up using Wave.
I would so greatly appreciate if you kept me in mind should you receive any invites to send out. I’m a graduate student in moral philosophy and a web developer. I want to get into Wave, not only to mess around for myself, with an eye to developing academic collaboration tools. You mentioned online conferences and writing collaboration; those are definitely on my radar. But I certainly can’t develop blindly. I need to get in there, play with it and see how it works.
Workshop? Let me know!
I tried to post earlier, apparently without any luck. Andrew, please put me on the list of possible wave invitees. This looks really interesting. I’d be interested in your workshop, too, if that’s still a open. In any case, thanks.
Mike,
Will do. I have no idea when I’ll be able to invite people. But as soon as I do, I’d like to get something like this started.
Hi Andrew,
I just got Wave the other day (no invite capability yet either), and I’m also interested in the research, collaboration, and teaching possibilities it represents for academic philosophy. Send me a wave if you like–my username is kevin.temple
Hey,
I got a wave invite last week and immediately thought just the same. I’m a student of philosophy and am eager to utilize google wave for research and practice.
I’m wondering if you are aware of any public or private philosophy waves that I could participate in?
Hey Kyle,
Can you email me your google wave ID? There are some public waves you might be interested in.
@Andrew : ?There are some public waves you might be interested in.?
Could you send me the links ? My google wave ID is : cedric.eyssette@googlewave.com
Hi Cedric,
Just sent them to you.
hiii anyone interested in philosophy in google wave please add me debasis10@googlewave.com
@cedric I have added you.
Just got on the Wave! Let me know if you want to try something out.