Jacob – Like the idea of group project usage for class.

J. Neville – Will do.

k mears – Work standard is IE, I am lucky to have Firefox on work PC. My laptop, I have both for testing how library resources look on IE and Firefox when people access library from home.

Ruben- Well I kept it simple because while this is a tech inspired library blog not everybody who reads it is as tech savvy as you are.

I agree the open source aspect is extremely cool, but not everything open source is great and sometimes open source add ons can be buggy. It just depends.

Yes I know it is green and very new, and as such it is just not “there” yet for librarians to use or build around for library services.

The search feature is horrible, plain and simple. You have librarians who are expert searchers who have problems finding public waves. I am not saying it is impossible, but the search feature has a long way to go because Joe Shmo won’t put up with it.

As I said Google’s decision to make it work best on Chrome could be either a stroke of genius or a colossal mistake. I understand how they want make something work best on with their program, but like it or not much of business and many hospitals work in Microsoft dominated world. Many hospital IT departments prohibit users from installing their own software (i.e. Chrome) so many people use IE at work. If Wave is to be successfull within corporations this is going to be a hurdle. Whether it is a hurdle for Google Wave or the IT departments it remains to be seen.

Google Wave could be the next must have utility application in the future. I don’t under estimate Google in general (except Google Scholar and its horrible indexing and retrieving of papers). I have seen and used other technology that in the beginning wasn’t ready for use within medical libraries, but after time and industrious librarians things changed. If things change and Wave evolves to be indespensible I will say it and blog about, I have done it before. I have a right to change my mind.

secondly, wave is open-source and the possibilities are endless in theory everything you do online-everything-can be done on wave, your email, your twitter, your facebook, your documents, and everything else you do on the net. The impassibilities for education also, endless! And across all industries, i just read a post about lawyers being able to use wave to have more communication with their clients and their coworkers, or interoffice communication about specific issues.

lastly, Google Wave is in preview mode, green and unpolished. There is lots to be done! However do not confuse your inability to find a practical use for yourself to be a permanent obstacle. Your inability to understand it does not make what you say a reality. About browser compatibility, wouldnt you design something that works seamlessly with your own products…is that really something to knock, obviously it wouldnt be smart of Google to create something that only works on Google products if they know the climb they face with there own browser, they would be cutting off their own legs! Do not underestimate the power of Google, their vision, if anything you should be scared of it! lol. wait and see and you’ll see you’ll be using Google Wave for everything.

Please excuse my grammar and spelling, i’m writing from my iphone- no, i don’t use everything google. lol

why in god’s name?

I thought the same thing about Wave when I first started playing around with it and didn’t understand what it could be used for. What really sold me on how it could start becoming very powerful with collaboration is with some of the gadgets that can be added (http://techpp.com/2009/10/14/ultimate-list-of-google-wave-gadgets-and-tools/) The gadgets add a whole new level to the collaboration process and takes it much further than just text.

Right now I’m currently getting my MLIS, and I am using Wave with some classmates as a way to plan activities for our student groups while everyone is travelling for the winter break. Adding maps into the waves allows for easy communication about places to visit and it keeps my email free from <5 word replies: “yeah, sounds good.”

Wave is also still in Beta, so hopefully they’ll start rolling out new features and adaptability. Thanks for the post