Categories
Google

Google Wave: What’s The Use?

Following up on my previous post about Google Wave I think it worth mentioning that Wave is good for more than just tracking your projects and activities. So here’s my own bold move – I am going to collect all the uses for Google Wave I could find. Feel free to suggest more, don’t limit yourself to currently available features.

  1. Project tracking, basic project management. Tie in a simple robot and you will even have some stats.
  2. New way of scheduling, where everyone can immediately see what the options for meeting are (I am not talking just about business meeting, pizza party from Google’s own example serves just right)
  3. Threaded real-time discussions, sort of like forums of bulletin boards, but without a need to refresh to see if there are any changes.
  4. Chat rooms, public or private.
  5. Blog posting tool, when the stream of blips is available as blog posts, wavelets are categories and you can still have fun with tags.
  6. Collaborative document editing, similar to what we saw in Google Docs, but with emphasis on collaboration and team work.
  7. Journal, such as workout log or (dare I say it?) captain’s log!
  8. Tweeting from Wave!

Feel free to add more in comments, I will keep updating this post as I will dig out more.

Categories
Google software technology

Long Time No See

Yes, that’s me – long time no see, but I am finally back. Two vacations and some life-changing experience as well as four months are through – and this blog is back online.

Since my last post was about iPhone, I will start with iPhone again now. So far it has proven to be a wonderful device, although it still has that toy feeling. Throughout all these four months I couldn’t help but think that I can’t wait to put this toy aside as soon as something more suitable comes along.

By being exposed to AppStore and the multitude of iPhone Apps, I kind of got an idea of the market, the possibilities and the progress one can make. What happens on iPhone market is very much similar to PC shareware scene back in the eighties. Lots of free programs with limited functionality with bunch of nagging screens asking for money in exchange for a full version. Lots of small software teams of few people (sometimes it’s just one person).

If current state of PC software market is any indication, in just a few years we’ll see the next generation productivity tools, massively multiplayer online games of all kinds, collaboration and communication suites.

And speaking of communications – recently I had a chance to try out Google Wave. My first impression – imagine Microsoft Work stuck in review revisions mode when a lot of people are making changes and you’re looking at them in real time. And instead of that annoying (at least to me) “copy column” you get to have instant messenger right inside the very document you’re editing. And you can play it as a movie to see who said what and when. And you can use it to blog (I am looking into that!). And share pictures. And create automated “bots” that will annoy people who try to talk to you when you’re away.

At some point during the I/O presentation (which I had to watch just to get an idea how to use the Wave) I got this funny feeling that Google is a self-improving artificial intelligence network that keeps googlers as ambassadors to humanity. Come to think of it – when you have a project (and you can call a project either building a web site or a vacation) and you communicate among a number of people, it’s hard to keep everything in order – meeting minutes, e-mails, instant messages, phone calls, to-do lists and so on. Google Wave takes care of all that. In fact, it does it so good that you don’t even need to come back to your old e-mail anymore. Each wave – is a task, an e-mail thread, a repository of documents and a to-do list. Once you start thinking in waves – I haven’t seen anyone using this expression, but it’s pretty obvious – you just can’t go back to old-style technology.

Categories
advertising Google

AdWords Response

The answer to my question about AdWords came faster then I anticipated, guys there are fast. While I doubt this strategy works for small resellers, it makes sense from Google’s point of view. In any case, I realize that it was my honest mistake.

There is nothing wrong with Google’s enforcement of its rules.  You just haven’t done what you need to do yet.  Even though your client is a registered affiliate, Google doesn’t know that.  They need to see written permission from the trademark holder that your client is allowed to use it.  Once they see that, you’re all set.  (In my case, I needed to ask Apple for permission to use the word “Mac”.)

Check out the help article below which has a link to the form that you’ll need the NFL and the NHL to fill out.  (They should have contact info for their trademark or their legal departments on their websites.)
Good luck.
The article mentioned is here: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=106477