The book that was not to be
Some of y’all might have noticed that my blog has been relatively silent this summer and spring. While some of this can be explained by summer vacation, there was another major reason.
I was writing a book. On Google Wave. Yes, that Google Wave, whose development was suspended earlier this month. I lucked out in that I only had four chapters completed. Others weren’t so lucky. A Wave team member I met at the GTUG campout told me that a Japanese book was released on the same day as the announcement.
Thrust in this situation, you could be mad about what could have been or roll with it. I am happy about is that I didn’t announce it too early. If I had done so, I think this experience would have been more embarassing fail than case of "que sera." I got to break the news on my terms. I learned a lot in the process and plan to share some of that in upcoming posts.
I still believe Google Wave is a great project and appreciate all the help I received from the Wave team, editors and reviewers. You might even see the fruits of my labor as smallish e-book(~100pgs were written). Don’t feel too bad for me, I have a new project that I will surface when the time is right ;).
Google Wave Take Two - Google Shared Spaces
Google Wave is one of the products from 2010 that was greatly misunderstood. It was launched at Google I/O 2009 for developers, released to the general public in May 2010, shut down in August, and moved to the Apache Foundation a bit after. Having worked on one of the launch gadgets, I still believe that it’s a good product albeit ahead of its time. After the problem of “none of my friends are on it” was solved, the blank page was a conundrum to most people. The open space emboldens the adventurous to fill it while paralyzing some with fear that they are doing “it” wrong.
Google Shared Spaces is a reining in of that ability to freely roam by centering the experience around individual gadgets. After finding a gadget you like, you can create a space hosting that gadget with built-in chat. If you aren’t signed into an account, you are able to use your Google, Twitter, or Yahoo credentials. That way you don’t have to create a new account to try out the service lowering the barrier to entry.
I can’t say for certain but it looks like when you try to add a gadget that it isn’t automatically added. I would think that is to make sure it is properly formatted and isn’t malicious.
I do like this evolution of the service and am looking forward to Shared Spaces being a Chrome OS app. I don’t know that it will displace many apps but for collaboration around a single event, focus, or idea, it could prove to be clutch.
