Google Wave: Not everyone is human ....

Review

(Google has made a limited number of development accounts available for a preview of its forthcoming “Wave” product. If you get yours, look me up. I’m ted.husted@wavesandbox.com.)

A few years back, when I first tried IntelliJ IDEA‘s refactoring tools, I felt like I was pair programming with Commander Data. In the background, IDEA would compile my code, correct my syntax, and suggest fixes when my programming got sloppy. IDEA helped me write better code in less time.

Being a Camelot of good ideas, Google Wave, in the guise of robots, includes its own twist on intelligent background agents. Spelly scans input to a wave and corrects spelling errors on the fly (using the web as its dictionary). Likewise, Linky scans the wave for text that looks like a hyperlink. If the reference leads to YouTube, Linky will even offer to embed a player into the wave. If language is a barrier to collaboration, Rosy the robot (no joke) will translate a wave into your native language.

To a wave, a robot is just another participant on the wave. A wave is often described as a conversation between participants. (In fact, to use a robot with a wave, you add the robot as a participant.) Just like any other participant, a robot can make real-time changes to the content.

Also like a human participant, a robot can interact with an external system. For example, Tweety can post from a wave to a Twitter account, and Bloggy can post a wave to a blog. If any changes are made to the wave, Bloggy will update the blog entry.

Aside from blogs, there are many other systems that a wavebot could update. While Wave has its own version control, a robot could also update an external Subversion repository with all changes made to a wave. Likewise, a robot could create a static HTML page from a wave, so we could edit a wave and automatically update a high-performance website.

Even though Wave is only in developer preview, there are already dozens of robots available, and more are being written every day. (A new website, Wavety.com, is already creating a directory of Robots and Gadgets.)

An “interesting” new robot is Eliza the Robot therapist. Eliza scans the wave input looking for chances to reflect. “How do you feel about that?” (Some people are calling Eliza the first spambot!) If you are unsure whether to chat with Eliza, decide with a quick round of rock/paper/scissors.

Already, I am feeling a need for a reverse Turing Test for wave participants – is it live or is it cybernext?

Press the Button

If robots are the workhorses of Wave, gadgets are the showdogs. Gadgets add interactive forms and animations to a wave, imposing focus and structure over participant input. Several gadgets are already available, including Polly, for polls, and Checky, for checklists. The gadget API is compatible with OpenSocial, making a host of existing gizmos available to wave developers.

Of course, the real test of any gadget platform is games. Already, we are seeing several multiplayer games bobbing into waves, including chess and soduko.

Although the full power of Wave is still rising to the surface, it’s easy to see that it will be a powerful platform for project management, content management, intranets, team communication, customer support, and just plain fun.

While we may not be able to use wave as a desert topping or floor wax, with the right robots and gadgets in play, we may be able to use it for everything else.

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