Google Wave – Chat or Collaboration P1

I’ve been using Google Wave for a couple of weeks now and from a construction management perspective, I can see some real potential.  Although my Wave contacts are few, I have picked up some quality professionals such as http://www.dunlopdevelopment.com and Quitelucid (by the way, thanks for the invite James).  This is probably obvious, but the real key is having people to Wave with, and an objective for the Wave is somwhat helpful as well;)  Now that i have established a small base of contacts and a specific objective, I am starting to see that this is about collaboration and not just Real-Time-Chat. Chris Brogan called Wave IM but more annoying
I am also starting to understand the invite system as well. By the time the actual product is introduced, there will be an incredible network of users that understand and have helped develop the Social Network. It is Twitter, yet a closed conversation. When I was first invited to join I was allotted 8 invites. I was able add an additional 6 or 7 automatically from my contacts already having the Google Wave Preview and received an additional 18 or so invites about a week later. I have only sent out 5 invites and have yet to hear if they have received their log-in or not. I can say for sure that none have popped up on my contacts as of yet. I have not found a way to search for users, but I’m sure it’s coming and how cool would it be to have a network of professionals that are already using a collaboration product like Wave in your contacts or search for people to collaborate with on a specific project. Again, I can see real potential here. I saw this post recently about Iowa State’s Virtual Budget Office and think Wave is an excelent tool for something like this. The link for the ISU VBO is in my Delicious. If you don’t have Wave and want it, I still have several invites left. My only prerequisite is that you are involved in some sort of construction related field. Please post your request in the comments portion of this post or contact me on Twitter. For now, here are a few tips

Google Wave Tips (so far)

• Have an @gmail account – https://www.google.com
• Install Google Chrome Browser – http://www.google.com/chrome Wave operates better with Chrome than with Internet Explorer, and you might like it.
• Open gmail, then your Wave invite with Chrome Browser and setup from there.
• You will be prompted to install Gears by Google Wave once logged in, Accept this. I have no clue what this is, just do it!

There are some really nice blog post and videos about Google Wave in my Delcious on the right of this page. Check them out!

12/16/09 – I have added some updated Google Wave resources to my Delicious including 125 bots for Google Wave –  Includes; Email notification, Twitter and 123 others.

That’s all I got for the moment! Add me to your wave Contact kfsydow@googlewave.com for more.