… and were mildly impressed.

We set up an agenda before the call started, and used that as our base document. It was then filled out as we discussed the various points, and comments were posted to capture remarks, questions and clarifications.

A couple of observations:

  • If your participants don’t have a Google account, you can’t add them with their regular Email address (even though that is somehow linked to their googlewave.com account), but you have to use their googlewave.com address.
  • The Ribbit plugin didn’t work.
  • There is a reluctance to edit other people’s blips. It seems to be more “polite” to comment on the blip and say that something isn’t correct than to go in and just edit the blip to correct it. Cultural thing - I’m sure it will change once more people have used Google Wave or even a Wiki.
  • It’s hard to make a comment in the conference call, and record it in the wave at the same time. However, a conference call is far superior in hammering out a discussion quickly. Maybe a designated typer would be an idea in a conference call?

We didn’t run into any software problems. There were 5 people on the call and the wave, and we never saw a slow-down or a crash. The only disappointment was the Reddit plugin, but that was easily overcome.

I think Wave is still looking for a good application. Minutes and collaborative documents seem the most obvious application, but I have the feeling there are more exciting applications for the Wave technique in the future.