Google Wave. Ideas for the future

Introduction

_{This is an improved version of the article.}



It is no secret that Volna attracted public attention ( 1 , 2 , 3 , etc. ) while still in deep testing.

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Now the Wave is open - and everyone can catch a wave or read reviews. I did not pass by either. At the very first acquaintance, the service turned my head around with its concept, and I was dreaming. This article is my perception of Wave, as well as a list of improvements related mainly to the functionality of a particular wave, a specific blip. This is what I lack for complete happiness. I think there are some very interesting proposals directly arising from the concept of Google Wave, the implementation of which would only increase the universality of the Wave. Some offers depend on others.

"What is Google Wave?"

Imagine that in front of you - the chat window. You see the history of correspondence: your messages are on a blue background, others are on a yellow background. You are now writing the answer to the last replica of the interlocutor. You have already written a few first words, when suddenly you notice that there is something wrong with the remark: it has literally changed literally! Part of the letters has worn off, as if someone had pressed Backspace, and well, let's recruit new words on a yellow background! And after a couple of seconds, another line with a green background wedged into the history of messages, and words and sentences began to appear on it too! In your eyes, all the correspondence suddenly healed with his life. The one who edited the lowest cue answered the words of the one who edited the highest. And two incomprehensible subjects in the middle of the correspondence were arguing among themselves and turned to you for advice. You have gained courage and wedged into the dispute, simply by placing the editing cursor in the right place.







Of course, if this happened in your IM client, you would have been out of sight for a long time. For Wave, this is a common situation, although people rarely rule other people's messages - they are increasingly writing new, fetching content right before your eyes. At the same time, Wave is not just a character chat, but the organization of “bursts” (in the jargon - blips) is like in blogs, that is, tree-like. Here you sit in someone's wave called “Place of relaxation”, read the messages, when suddenly a picture appears in front of your nose and someone starts drawing on it! And below you can see how a certain participant posted a video from YouTube and is now writing an announcement to him. You still want to read a very interesting message, so ignore another activity, but the activity gets to the message being read. The author simply erased it and said that he would make a separate wave in two days. What to do, because this text captured you, and you want to read it completely? You can, of course, immediately ask the author to return the text, but you can just look into the playback mode - and you will see not just the past of the wave, but the past in dynamics. The wave in the sea is here and now, it is formed by streams, waters, it is always in motion. Only neither the oceans nor the ships have a time machine to watch the past. Do you have.



Google Wave is a chat, a forum, and a blog. Blog you said? Yes sir! Create and drive one (two, three) wave, not offering access to editing to everyone, but allowing it to be read. Chat Start up a wave with a call to chat, and see what happens! Forum? Easily. Name the topic, describe the rules of communication, - because Wave has already developed a special etiquette, - and you will see how people will communicate.



Google Wave is not a chat, not a forum or a blog. I don’t have exact words to describe Wave, you can try it yourself. Or you can read what some witty people are doing with Wave . Better to say - Wave is what you want to make from it.

Feature Requests for Google Wave

I propose to discuss not only the ideas themselves, but imagine how they would affect communication and life on the Wave / on the Internet. After the ideas are run-through, I will try to bring them to the developers.



- Playback mode for a separate blip.



From the developers: Individual comment thread playback (For instance being able to be able to view).



- From the side to make a sensory activity band. It marks the sites of activity of participants in the wave. The same applies to the playback mode. Activity bar should be hidden.



(I see an option that is implemented in TortoiseMerge. A very convenient bar for viewing changes.)



- Modified elements of blips to highlight or otherwise highlight. Also display the places of change in the activity bar.



From developers: Colored blips on their respective locations. If you are looking for a blinker, it would be transparent.



- In the list of participants, mark the color frame with avatars active. When you click once on such an avatar, transfer the view to the place of activity of this participant. Move active members to the top of the list. Separate live participants from robots.



- Online / off-line editing of each message, by default - online. Somehow selected when editing a message. For wave members, the edited off-line message is grayed out, cannot be answered, cannot be edited.



(This option is described for the client in the Google Wave API review : “Bursts can be presented as drafts or published by clicking the“ Done ”button in the Google Wave client.”)



- When reaching a turn in a certain amount of blips, turn the discussion into one meta slip containing n blips. Metablip must be relocatable. Let the meta slip contain 100 blips and 125 in the wavelet. Metablip appears when someone creates the 125th blip (the minimum amount of blips for the emergence of the metablip). Only 100 neighboring blips will be included in the meta-flip, and 25 remain outside. These can be the first 25 blips, the last 25 or (for example) 10 at the top and 15 at the bottom. The sizes of the metablips are changed, the metablips are broken up by the elements, if a new blip appears inside or the old one has been edited (optional). Metablip displays the number of blips participants. Old discussions also collapse into metablips. Metablips are displayed on the activity bar as rectangles. Metablips should, if possible, combine not only the blips in one wavelet, but also the blips of different wavelets. On the metablet there should be buttons “Pick up all the blips from the top”, “Pick up the closest upper blip”, “Pick up all the blips from below”, “Pick up the nearest lower blip”.



- Joint video viewing. The video player is placed in the blip. Users ("viewers") subscribe to viewing with the help of a special button, and in the same place they select the quality they need. Their avatars can be seen in the dropdown list. For signatories, a protected space (metablip) is organized so as not to interfere with another part of the wave. From the moment of subscription, the video player starts to download the video. For viewers, vertical download indicators are displayed to the right of the player. These bars show the readiness of everyone to view. Any viewer clicks "Play for all", and the video starts playing for all subscribed. Viewers can communicate in a thread, in which blips are added from bottom to top under the player. For the rest of the thread collapsed, you can expand and participate in the discussion. For third parties, a progress bar is displayed directly under the video player - the process of viewing by the viewers. You can join the viewing with the button near the indicator. After the end of viewing, the thread turns over and becomes a normal part of the wave. While watching, you can also walk in another part of the wave.



- Joint listening to sound recordings (podcast, soundtrack, etc.). Participation is similar to joint video viewing.



(It seems to me that this will not be a success, but the video preview will be.)



- Integration with Internet radio. A radio player is added to the wave and tuned to a specific radio wave, for a specific on time (eg, from 10:00 to 12:00). Participation is similar to sharing video, only the player turns on itself.



- Video conferencing-in-blip. (There is a video chat extension, how it works, there is no way to check.) Participation in video conferences is similar to participation in video viewing. Blip video conferencing necessarily saved and appears as a special wave in the special folders of the participants. Playing a blip is playing a conference.



- Audio conferencing - a special case of video conferencing.



(A certain type of conference is available as a Conference gadget. I don’t know how it works.)



- Separate ordinary and epochal changes of the wave. Epochs in playback mode should be marked with large serifs.



- Broadcast blip to another wave. You can broadcast either the current blip, or its moment from its history. In the first case, “remote” editing may be allowed or prohibited. By broadcasting blip you can go to the source wave.



(Now you can select any part of the wave into a separate wave, but this is not the same as the broadcast. The broadcast implies that the receiver sees changes in the source. With this function you can collect the wave from the monitored blips, it would be convenient for moderators. You can also make quotes and links.)



- Radio / video - wave. Video / audio conferencing blips marked as public broadcasts are broadcast into the general wave flow with a special tag. Everyone can watch, listen or join (depending on the privacy settings of the conference). A special case is when one person participates in Video / audio conferencing, then the wave turns into pure TV and radio.



(Thus, you can make a wave-channel).



- Translation of external resources in the wave.



- Waves-code waves for developers. The code file is translated into a wave. Developers can write and discuss code at the same time. In the ideal case, the epochal changes of the wave become commits in the external repository (commits into temporary, not main branches, of course). Code folding to metablips. Highlighting code.



From the developers: Code highlighting inside waves / blips.



(There is a robot for highlighting the code: kasyntaxy@appspot.com.)



- Integration of Wave with an external version control system (eg, from SVN to Google Code). Folders - projects, waves - project files. Wave change history - commit history.



- “online selection” mode: when one participant selects a part of a blip, for example, text, others see this selection. Similar to the laser pointer during a regular presentation.



- A third-party site window inside the wave. (As an option: the “internal browser” window.) Working with it is no different from working on the site itself.



- Customizable position of the list of participants. By default, the list is on the right side of the window. Make the list hidden.



From the developers: Being able to move around and reorganize the panels.



- By default, minimize threads.



From developers: Maybe in a way to read it. If you want to get more information, you’ll want to get more information.



- Integration with office programs, including presentations.



(This point is perhaps one of the most predictable and expressed not only by me.)



* Integration with the service Google Docs: co-editing a document.



(Wave export to Google Docs is available using the Ferry gadget.)



* Integration with presentations. Presentation of the presentation is similar to sharing video, mixed with video conferencing. Added online selection mode. The mouse becomes a laser pointer.



- Spoiler blip.



- “Rollback” of a wave to a certain epochal (or other) revision.



(Without this, the wave is not a Wiki, but a likeness, whatever one may say.)



- Sound design waves (background sounds and music). The author of the wave links to the first message one or several soundtracks that are played for the participants of the wave. Disabled. There should be a global setting “Play background music in waves”.



- One of the main wishes for all is more opportunities for moderation, for setting permissions to the wave. Moderation can be done with the help of certain templates of editing blips. Permissions can be displayed in the first blip (or before the first blip) in the form of icons and / or inscriptions. Such templates:

* any editing is allowed (by default, as it is now);

* you can not edit blips;

* you can not edit someone else's blips;

* you can only add blips;

* you can add only your blips;

* you can correct spelling;

* do not insert empty messages;

* the same actions only for participants of the wave or for all.



(“Patterns” can be anything: robots, gadgets, or native functions. I don’t, in principle, care how developers solve this important problem.)



- Wave icon, emphasizing the thematic focus of content.



- Invites to a specific wave.



- Own groups of participants.



This question has already been considered on Habrahabr.



- Fast wave creation for a specific group of participants.



- "Quick Search" - customizable buttons with the search terms hung.



From the developers: Make the search more user friendly. (With: public, inbox and inbox is a bit different then what most are use to). It would be nice.



- Remove the yellow strip.



- It is native to present YouTube videos as waves with a special tag.

Wave references

> This topic in Google Wave: wave.google.com/wave/waveref/googlewave.com/w+riNZ4brQC



> Wave of developers: wave.google.com/wave/#restored : wave: googlewave.com! W% 252BEdTOMiGeA

Other Wave materials

"What is Google Wave?"

Searching for these words gives an unlimited number of results. I dare to give some useful links:



* Marathon with Google Wave father Lars Rasmussen

* Lars online (Kiev-Sydney Wave Marathon with Lars Rasmussen)

* Google Wave on Wikipedia

* Article on a certain site



Terms



Blip - Eng. “Blip” - “splash”.

Wavelet - English “Wavelet” - “small wave”.