2, 4, 6, 8 - Columnist can't collaborate

Thanks to a friend, I got an invite last week to the beta test of Google Wave.

There had been a sort of online rumor a week or two ago -- the type of thing for which I don't normally fall -- that Google was giving away invites to those who Tweeted about the product. I fell for it -- and while the rumor wasn't true, it actually worked in my case. A friend of mine who had invites saw my Tweet and signed me up. A few days later, I got the official invites from Google.

It's slick, easy to use, and I'm imagining ways it could turn out to be useful. But the trouble is, it's a collaborative tool, and right now there are a grand total of four contacts in my address book who are also signed up, and I'm not collaborating with any of them on anything right now. I started a test wave, just to see how it worked, and invited two of them (one of whom was the source of my invite) to participate. They indulged me, so I know the service works, but I can't say that I've really put it through its paces.

Most of you, at this point, are asking "What's Google Wave?"

Google Wave is ... hard to describe. It's sort of a cross between an instant messenger program, social networking, and those online document services (like Google Docs or Buzzword) that let people collaborate on the same document. It was created by the same developers who were originally responsible for Google Maps.

The program is based on "waves." A "wave" is a free-form message-slash-document, and anyone who is invited to participate in it can modify it, reply to it, embed things in it, and what have you. There's even a "playback" feature that allows you to watch how the wave has been modified and added to over time.

There will also be extensions or plugins to the basic service that add functionality. For example, there's a plugin that lets you start a sudoku game with someone else online in the form of a wave. There's a "yes/no/maybe" polling plugin, which would be handy if you had a large team of people collaborating. I'm not sure whether outside developers will be freely able to create their own plugins or whether they will come only from Google-approved developers. I think a more open approach would lead to more useful plugins.

I think this service will, like Twitter, turn out to be used in ways the creators never imagined, both for work and for fun. It seems flexible, responsive and easy to use.

Right now, though, I really don't have much of an opportunity to try it out. Eventually, I assume I will get some invitations to the beta test, and I can start signing up other people to participate. Also, as time goes on, I'm sure I'll find more of my friends popping up online after having received their invites from other sources. Once that happens, I'll get a better idea of how the service might be useful going forward.

--John I. Carney is city editor of the Times-Gazette and covers county government. He is also the author of the self-published novel "Soapstone." His personal web site is lakeneuron.com; this week's column is adapted and expanded from a blog post which first appeared there.