In our last post on Google Wave, we talked about the impending final shutdown of the service on April 30th, 2012 (it is currently in read-only mode), and the potential for Apache Wave and Walkaround to keep the real-time collaboration tool going. We’ve even done a bit of hunting on our own for a suitable Wave alternative, but the reality is that Wave was a bit ahead of its time. Fortunately, another possibility for resurrection has surfaced: Rizzoma.

Rizzoma is a free, open source version of Google Wave that boasts some improvements to the look, feel, and function of the service. Some of the features they talk about on their site are an easy to use mobile version that actually works, improves search, the ability to to assign and track tasks within Rizzoma, easy team management and content sharing, and a built in mindmap mode.

Rizzoma also promises the ability to re-install your favourite open source gadgets from Google Wave, and the ability to import your old Waves to the new platform.

The unfortunate truth, however, is that Rizzoma’s current level of marketing far outstrips the actual state of the product. Their website looks very promising, with a big button that says log in with your Google account and a video that makes you believe that the service is ready to go. I don’t know if it was an oversight on their part that they don’t include a note that the service is in beta and most of the truly awesome features are still on their way, but the reality is that a newcomer to Rizzoma will likely find themselves confused and disappointed. At least for now. After a bit of hunting on their support forums, I found that the bulk of what’s promised should be available within a month.

Right now, @mentions work, basic document creation, editing, and collaboration is available, the mobile version is functional, and the improved look and feel is on point. Importing your old Waves is also working, via the WaveShortcuts Chrome extension created by Project Volna — who are also the people behind Rizzoma. Importing your Waves via the extension is fairly simple, and the final result is readable and usable, though huge Waves with a lot of nested upon nested replies could get a bit unwieldy.

If you have been on the hunt for a Google Wave alternative, or are just looking for a real time collaboration tool that works across platforms, Rizzoma looks promising, despite the potential marketing/first impression snafu. If they are true to their word about getting the big features up and running effectively within a month, then we may finally have a winner here — proivded they can get enough support. Rizzoma is definitely the most promising Google Wave alternative I’ve come across so far. If you are at all interested, you may want to check them out and start importing your Waves now, as the time window is closing fast.

Check out the video below to see where Rizzoma is taking Wave:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Learn how to import your Waves to Rizzoma:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out Rizzoma and tell us what you think!

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement Part III – Socialwok
• The Death of Email — At Least Internally — At A Large Multi-national Company
• Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It
• Google’s Cloud Connect Syncs MS Office with Google Docs

Yeah, yeah, I know. Google Wave is dead and gone, right? Not quite. We already talked about the potential of Apache Wave, and mentioned that the Google original is still available to those who care to squeeze every ounce they can from the innovative flop. Today, though, Google circulated an email to Wavers containing the end dates and Wave’s last gasp.

Wave was originally supposed to only be maintained to the end of 2010. For reasons of their own, however (likely to court potential future developers like Apache), Google let that date blow by with the waves still… waving. The final shutdown date is now, officially, January 31, 2012.

As of that date, Google Wave will become read only. Exporting waves (individually) to PDF will still be possible up until April 30, 2012. After that, the service goes down for good.

If you love your Wave and want to keep using it for your projects, you can keep going with the open source forks, most notably Apache Wave and Walkaround. Walkaround has an experimental feature that allows — or at least attempts — to import all of your waves from Google Wave. This will stop working on April 30, as well, so if you want to take advantage of it, do it before then.

Personally, I want to see more of Wave’s features integrated into Google+ and Google Docs, especially the potential for third-party addons. I don’t see Google opening that up anytime soon, as it could take Plus down paths they aren’t ready for, but who knows? Maybe down the line, eh?

What do you think?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement, Part II – More Google Services!
• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• My Conversion from iCal to Google Calendar
• Google Demotes Itself (Chrome) in Search Rankings

If you were a fan of Google Wave’s integrated gadgets, or just need a place to set up some easy real-time collaboration, then check out Google Labs’ new Shared Spaces. Shared Spaces uses Wave’s technology to provide private collaboration spaces that you can invite others to via a provided short link. There are about 50 gadgets already available, such as the Map Gadget, Draw Board, WaveTube, yourBrainStormer, Napkin Gadget, and a few games. Once you choose the gadget that suits your needs, you simply click Create a Space and your window will open, complete with a chat area, link, and buttons to invite others via Email, Buzz, or Twitter. Once you’re finished, spaces can be deleted simply by selecting the Delete this Space button.

Each gadget on the list has a short description, and can be opened in its own page, where users can leave comments via Disqus, which will help others decide if the gadget will work well or not. This will be especially good if Shared Spaces catches on with the JavaScript programming community, and a ton of new gadgets start appearing.

You need to be logged in to your Google Account to use Shared Spaces, and authorize it for access. It should also be noted that, as of yet, it doesn’t appear to be working in Internet Explorer.

EDIT: According to the Google Blog, you can also log in via Twitter and Yahoo accounts.

What are your thoughts on Google’s Shared Spaces?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It
• Google’s Cloud Connect Syncs MS Office with Google Docs
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement Part III – Socialwok
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement, Part II – More Google Services!

In case you missed the announcements last week, Google Wave will live on, and quite likely prosper, in the open source development hands of Apache. In November, Google made a proposal to the Apache Software Foundation to take over development of Wave, hoping to keep the potential of the project alive and bring new blood to its development. The proposal mentioned several weighty companies (including the US Navy) that are still actively using Wave, which was originally set to shut down at the end of 2010, and listed people willing to commit to the project from both within and outside of Google.

Prior to talks with Apache, Google had already made a standalone version of Wave available to interested developers. The end product was named “Wave in a Box” and maintained much of Wave’s functionality. It was even able to import Wave data and communicate with other Wave in a Box installations through a federated protocol. Apache is essentially installing Wave in a Box to their servers and adding it to their Incubator projects as a means to gather a community that will continue active development. I’m not sure whether all existing Wave data will come with it, or not, but it is always possible that the new Apache Wave will offer importing of your Wave data at some point. If you want to act now, there is already a button in each single Wave that allows for exporting to HTML, or PDF with attachments, and Google is apparently working on a tool to export large amounts of Waves at one time, as well as a way to access your Waves in Google Docs.

At any rate, for those of you who were following our Wave Alternatives posts, there is definite hope on the horizon for a better, stronger, and ultimately more useful Wave in the near future.

Keep tabs on the Wave Incubator project here.

What are your thoughts on Apache Wave?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It
• Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement Part III – Socialwok
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement, Part II – More Google Services!

This is the third in a series of articles evaluating potential alternatives to Google Wave, which Google is discontinuing.  Check out Part I (Shareflow) and Part II (Google Services).

UPDATE: As of June 26, 2011, Socialwok announced that they would no longer be accepting new user sign up and are discontinuing the service. This comes due to a lack of funding and developer availability. Socialwok will allow users to continue to access the service for the purposes of downloading their data until July 12th, 2011. — Thanks to Ron for the update.

In an effort to discover a reasonable replacement for the collaborative powers of Google Wave, 40Tech has gone forth and tested several free or mostly free services and methods. So far, we’ve reviewed Zenbe’s Shareflow, as well as a conglomeration of other Google services (which, reportedly, will be absorbing some of Wave’s features). As our next candidate, we tested Socialwok, a free, very Facebook-like service that allows you to not only create your own focused social network(s), but was designed to integrate tightly into Google Apps.

Socialwok Features

A Social Layer to Google Apps (and more)

Socialwok adds a social layer to Google Apps that was not readily available before. On any Socialwok post, you can share a file, a URL, a Google Docs file, a note, an event (with Gcal integration), a location, or send an @message. Socialwok also enables cross-domain conversations; provides feed-specific email addresses that allow you to forward emails into a notes for discussion; in-line file and docs previews; and the ability to set up or be a part of multiple social network conversations via different “feeds”. Notifications of feed updates are available via email and in Google Talk; and while you are in the Socialwok application, new conversations will rise to the top (bubble up, as they say), with a notification bar appearing on the top to allow you to click to see the new post activity.

Social Network Aggregation and Research

Since rocking the Google Apps marketplace, Socialwok has expanded its vision to encompass that of a social productivity tool, even allowing you to aggregate other social streams into your Socialwok. Being able to bring in Twitter, Twitter search, Facebook, Google Buzz, and blog, website, or other feeds is a fantastic way to keep on top of information that you, your group, or your company needs. This aspect of Socialwok works somewhat like a potentially very organized Friendfeed or Cliqset — though Socialwok does not have near the level of Twitter or Buzz integration that Cliqset does (you can publish messages to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, however). In the future, Socialwok is even planning to support services like Salmon Protocol.

Multiple Ways to Work in Socialwok

If you enjoy working in Gmail, through a simple gadget URL, you can integrate Socialwok and all of its features right into your Gmail interface. The close similarity to the Gmail/Google look and feel, makes for simple movement from one UI to the other, as does the familiar, Facebook-like functionality. There is also a Seesmic plugin (if you want to work in a desktop environment), a Microsoft Outlook plugin, and a great mobile site.

The Socialwok mobile site is actually really well put together. It even has the effect of simplifying Socialwok, cutting down on the potential overwhelm that can be brought about by multiple feeds in one platform. I actually preferred the mobile app to the web app — but I kind of live on my phone. iPhone and Android apps are available, but in beta. The Android app is available on Google Marketplace, but I was unable to find the iPhone app on the Canadian app store. Sign up for the beta here. Apparently, you could win a Kindle.

Create (Several) Custom Social Networks

You can, as mentioned, create or be a part of several social networks within Socialwok. Each feed is a network unto itself, which allows you to invite certain people to it, just like Google Wave. At the moment, people can only be part of a feed with an invitation, even if they are already friends with you on your Home feed, or collaborate with you on another feed. There is no public search of feeds or topics, like in Wave, or any public feeds, at all, to speak of. Some of that may change soon — but I’ll be talking more about it a bit later in the post.

What’s Needed to Bring it Closer to Wave

The main thing that Socialwok needs is the ability to edit. Without being able to edit comments, posts, and notes, there is no real way to keep collaboration on a topic tightly organized without extensive use of Socialwok’s (very good) search function. Group editing permissions would be the most robust, but even being allowed to edit your own posts would be a step forward. We spoke to Socialwok’s CEO, Ming Yong, about this and he assures us that both solo and group editing are upcoming features.

The integration of 3rd party apps and services would also be a great addition to Socialwok, as they were in Wave and continue to be in Facebook. No word on whether or not that is in the pipe, but, as Socialwok grows in success, it is not so unlikely that they might release an API for such developments.

Other Would Be Nice Features:

1. RSS feeds for specific posts and comments, and/or the ability to send a particular post and all of its comments into a new feed (to localize the discussion) would help to keep important topics from getting buried. Fine controls for what floats to the top of your feed and what gets buried would also be a way to help here, as it would cut down on noise and enable you to keep your eyes on important conversations. Another option  albeit a less powerful one, would be the ability to “sticky” certain posts. You can sort of do this now by “liking” a post, which automatically sends it to your personal Favorites feed.
2. Socialwok should loosen the Google Apps-focus to encompass more general Google services. While the level of integration with Google Apps is awesome, and people outside your domain or even the Apps framework can use Socialwok, users who are not using Apps can run into issues with some of Socialwok’s functionality. For example, people outside your domain, at this time, can’t be made admins of a feed, and the Gmail link in the mobile app will not link you to your non-Google Apps Gmail account. You simply get an error. A little more openness could increase the overall value of the service — or it could dilute it to the point of ruination. A fine line to walk, but it appears to be one that Socialwok is willing to dance on, as they are currently planning Twitter, Facebook, and Google authentication, and even the ability to embed a feed on a public website — which has a huge amount of potential for the platform, customer management, and discussion communities.
3. A means to know when others are online might be handy — I am ambivalent here, but it would add a nice level of Google Wave-ness to Socialwok.
4. A “Mark As Read” button or some behind the scenes AI that allows posts to be marked as read across all feeds would be fantastic. As it is now, if you get a new post in one of your specific feeds and read and comment on it, Socialwok still shows one unread item in your Home feed, and vice versa. This can get annoying rather quickly.
5. Task management would be a really nice addition to Socialwok, and is one of the topics of discussion within the company right now. When I spoke with Ming last week, he was inquiring as to what level of task management would be best. I said that Producteev-level would be perfect, but may be infeasible — I would be happy with anything that is more powerful and useable than Google Tasks…
6. Google Docs integration in Socialwok is incomplete, in my opinion. You can add Google Docs files and they can be easily found via search or the left sidebar link. You can even preview the doc. Unfortunately though, you can’t edit in-line — when you click to open the doc it sends you to Google Docs, proper. This is not a huge deal, but when I open the preview to read a doc, I want to be able to edit it right then and there, within the Socialwok window it opened up in.

Conclusions

The consensus on Socialwok at 40Tech was two to one against, as both Evan and Josh were unable to get into the UI and flow of the web app. It grew on me, however, and grows on me still. Despite some of the annoyances, and the feeling that it was just “not quite there yet” for me, I found the familiarity of the interface easy to adopt into my work style, and I could readily envision how Socialwok could be used to facilitate collaboration within a company (or group of companies) — which is what it was ultimately designed for.

The development team are aggressively improving on the Socialwok platform, even reaching out to request interviews with active users to garner feedback and suggestions, as well as offer help, if needed. This bodes well for Socialwok’s future, especially if they successfully implement even a few of the features on their roadmap. It isn’t Google Wave, but it is definitely worth checking out if you have a good group of people that need to maintain regular, focused contact with each other. And it’s free. Socialwok is planning to offer premium administration features and virtual file sharing allotments in the future, but you can use the hell out of this application without paying a dime, as things stand now.

What are your thoughts on Socialwok? Tell us why it will or won’t work for you.

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• AirDropper: An Easy Way to Request Files — and Have Them Sent Straight to Your Dropbox
• Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces
• 3 Ways to Sync Your MS Office Documents to the Cloud
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement, Part I: Shareflow

This is the second in a series of articles evaluating potential alternatives to Google Wave, which Google is discontinuing.  Check out Part I (Shareflow) and Part III (Socialwok).

For those of you who have never used Google Wave, sorry, you’ve missed your chance.  As you may have heard, Google announced recently that it won't be developing Wave any further as a standalone product, although Google will keep it open at least through the end of the year.  This is pretty unfortunate, because Wave filled a unique niche by providing a great platform for real-time team collaboration and discussion.

So, here at 40Tech we’ve begun a search for a replacement for Wave.  Last week we reviewed Zenbe Shareflow as a possible replacement for those of you who used and came to love Google Wave.  Today we offer a second suggestion.  This suggestion isn’t a collaboration site so much as a system to replace Wave.

The system to replace Wave is based on using the full-range of Google’s other products.  One of the main advantages that Wave shares with the other products in our "Wave Replacement" series, is that it brings all communications and documents into one platform.  While using several web products is undeniably a bit more complicated and messy than a single website, it also offers some advantages as well.  For example, it provides you with several layers of flexibility, and new features to allow you to adapt the system to how you and your group prefer to work.

The idea of using Google’s full suite of products to replace Wave started with the realization that we likely will see new features rolled out to Google products, based on features that got their start in Wave (real-time email communications perhaps?).  Google said as much in their blog post announcing the end of Wave.  We then realized that many of the best aspects of Wave are already available across Google’s other offerings, if you use those applications to their full potential.

First, we'll look at why you should consider using Google’s other services to coordinate efforts and communications in real-time with a group.  Second, we’ll look at what specific services you should use, and the aspects of the communications for which they're best used.  And finally we’ll look at how you can manage all of those services.

Why use Google’s suite of products to replace Google Wave?

Anyone who has used the internet to do anything (i.e., everyone) has probably at some point become concerned about the amount of information that Google possesses about them.  Add to this concern Google’s recent stance on net neutrality, and there is a valid question as to why someone would rely on Google even more.  Put simply, tens of millions of people continue using Google’s products every day because they are just so good.

When I see a website with that light blue and white color scheme that is simple and powerful, I know that I’m using a Google product.  Almost every product that Google offers is available across all platforms, with many of those products available offline.  Almost all of them have very simple ways to archive, import and export your information, and they are so widely used that there are tons of add-ons, plug-ins, gadgets and tie-ins to complement what are already great products.

Google has had problems with some server availability, but my experience has been that those problems are exceedingly rare and are very quickly fixed.  Many of Google's products have automatic save functions to eliminate the dread of losing something you just spent hours working on, like what I experience every time Microsoft Word crashes on my work computer.  There are tons of keystroke shortcuts to speed up your work, and of course the search functions within Google's products can’t be beat.  Google offers HTTPS access to many of its services for secure access, and all of its products are available free of charge.

There are of course other services that offer a full-range of products that are similar to Google’s products; Yahoo, Zoho and Microsoft come to mind, but all in all I have found that Google gives you the most powerful and flexible set of tools to coordinate your full range of communications.  Perhaps most importantly, I already use at least one Google product every day.  As a result, the learning curve is much shallower for me to get up to speed on a Google product’s capabilities.

For this post, I’ll assume that you have a Google account, and a working knowledge of the Google tools.  If you don’t have an account, then you may want to sign up.  It only takes a second, and if you need more background knowledge you can go to the main page of each service (links are provided below).  To pull all of these services together I’ll be using iGoogle and One Number, an extension developed for Chrome by Dan Bugglin.  However, if you would like a desktop-based application that is a much richer experience, then check out Google Desktop and add gadgets for the services I’ll discuss.  Desktop has enough capabilities that at some point I’ll probably write a post just on it.

On to the system!

If you click through Google’s main page to its full listing of services, it can be overwhelming.  Google offers 24 different services under search alone!  However, you don’t need every service.  You can more than compensate for the loss of Wave through the use of Gmail and Chat for communications,  Docs for editing emails and real-time collaboration, GCal for calendaring functions, Tasks for the obvious tracking of tasks, and iGoogle or One Number to pull it all together and display the other services in one place.  I’ll give a brief description of the high points of each, but if you’d like to hear more about how I’ve used these services to replace Wave feel, free to contact me or ask your questions in the comments, below.

Communications: Gmail and Google Chat

One of the most important aspects of coordinating any team is coordinating communications.  Because of Gmail’s use of collapsible email chains (tied to the subject of the email), it is easily the best way to communicate with a group.  It provides a permanent record of communications that is easy to follow and get out of the way when you have finished reading it.

For more real-time communications right inside of Gmail you have the option of using Chat.  If your account is set-up for it, Google will even archive your chats and make them searchable from within Gmail, again to maintain a record of communications.  Using a combination of Gmail and Chat will usually suffice for discussion purposes, but it offers some additional advantages over Wave, including ease of use (even my grandmom knows how to use email), a permanent record of conversations that can’t be altered, and the ability to turn an email into an event or or task by exporting them to Calendar and Tasks (both of which I’ll discuss below).

Wave has a major advantage over email and chat in that it provides a platform for a group to develop ideas because, as you surely know, you can’t go back and edit an email to develop an idea further.  However, Google has provided this ability through a combination of email and Docs

.

Real-time Group Writing: Docs

Docs is probably one of Google’s least used offerings, besides the obvious exception of Wave, which is presumably why they are shutting Wave down.  Docs allows for real-time collaboration on documents, presentations, spreadsheets,  and even drawings.  It has hundreds of searchable templates and the ability to create your own templates for later use if you choose to do so.

You can create shareable folders which will automatically modify the permissions of any document that is placed into that folder to match those of the folder.  As an example of why this is useful, I created a folder that gives Evan and Bobby full permissions. As a result, I can dump any document regarding 40Tech into that folder, and Evan and Booby will be able to review, edit and comment on it.  At the same time, they won’t be able to access the folder that I have set-up for my wife and I to coordinate  our vacation plans.

Another useful feature of Docs is the ability to import Gmail messages into Docs.  Once a Gmail message is imported into Docs, the text can be edited or added to for additional collaboration.

Also, for any document that has been made public, you can subscribe to the document's RSS feed to track changes as they occur.  As far as I can tell, this option is currently only available for public documents.  This is unfortunate, because it would be very convenient to be able to subscribe to those documents that I’ve set as private but am working on with others.

Another disappointing shortcoming of Docs is that although it bolds a document title if someone has worked on it since your last log-in, it does not identify what changes have been made.  Wave did a great job of this, and even had a function to scroll through time to replay changes as they happened.  I am hoping these features will be brought to Docs shortly.  What Wave lacked, though, was any kind of ability to schedule meetings or create and track tasks, which Google thankfully offers in GCal and Tasks.

Scheduling conference calls and meetings: GCal

In much the same way that Gmail is the gold standard of email offerings, GCal is the gold standard in calendaring choices.  GCal’s main selling point is simplicity.  In Gcal you can quickly create an event, add notes and attachments, create a reminder, and add guests.  There are probably thousands of public calendars, so I don’t even need to do the work to add the U.S. holidays to my calendar, for example (or, more importantly, the Penn State football schedule).  It has a clean display that makes keeping track of your schedule a breeze.  Critical for group collaboration, though, it is just as easy to share your calendar with others and add their calendars to yours.  In doing so, GCal even converts events to your time zone.  One of my favorite aspects of GCal, though, is the ability to display tasks that are coming due on your calendar.

Task Tracking: Tasks

As mentioned above, using several services to replace Wave offers the advantage of being able to personalize the system to your liking.  Using Tasks is such a tweak that I have made for my personal system.  Tasks is a very Spartan tasks tracking system, especially when compared to Remember the Milk and others of that level, but it gets the job done.  You can create tasks and subtasks quickly, either in Tasks or by moving an email to it.  You can have the task displayed in your calendar, set due dates, and even get reminders when you want them.  What more do you want?  If there is anything else that you may want, then Tasks probably isn’t for you because there really isn’t much more than that.

Pulling All of This Together: iGoogle and One Number

To pull all of this together and be able to view everything on one page, Google offers iGoogle.  You can add gadgets for each service mentioned here and look at them all side by side.  You can of course add tons of other gadgets (Dilbert anyone?), but I have one tab set aside just for these services as kind of my command center.

If your browser of choice is Google’s Chrome, one of the best extensions available is One Number.  The extension checks your Google services at intervals that you designate, and notifies you of updates through a non-invasive tool bar icon.  It is currently limited to Gmail, Google Reader, Google Voice and Wave, but in speaking with the developer he has said that the next release will have more services, including Docs.  At this point it is a nice convenience to be notified of new communications, but as it adds new services it could completely replace iGoogle for me in this system, thus eliminating the need for me to leave the page open and further streamlining my group communications.

I know this sounds like a lot of work to replace one service, especially since our series looks at other single services to replace Wave.  Once it’s set up, though, I really have found it to be a comprehensive and, just as importantly, simple way to maintain open lines of communication with members of a group.  Further, it allows me to schedule appointments and keep track of the tasks that result from those communications and appointments in services that I already use.  To top it all off, it’s all pulled together in one simple interface through iGoogle.  I think if you give it a try you will find that it is worth the effort.

What do you think?  If you use Wave, are you going to use other Google services as a replacement?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It
• Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement, Part I: Shareflow
• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• Producteev Gets a Massive Upgrade: Android App, Windows Desktop App, and an All Around Makeover

This is the first of a few articles over the coming weeks that will evaluate potential alternatives to Google Wave, which Google is discontinuing.  Check out Part II (Google Services) and Part III (Socialwok).

While many people had no use for Google Wave, the recent announcement of its impending demise is a disappointment for those who found it to be a useful tool.  Are you looking for a replacement?  If so, come along with us as we try out some alternatives over the coming weeks.  The first candidate that we’ve tried out is Zenbe Shareflow, a tool that is surprisingly Wave-like.  Read on for our impressions, and then let us know in the comments what you think of it.

Overview

Shareflow is very similar to Wave in many respects (with one key omission, which we’ll cover below).  You can start a “Flow,” which is a threaded series of comments, much like a Wave.  You can invite other users to a Flow, and then those users can post new comments to the Flow, or reply to existing comments.

To conceptualize Shareflow, think of a forum, with different posts, and replies to those posts.  The left side of the screen in Shareflow lists the various Flows, using titles that you assign to each Flow.  To use the forum analogy again, think of the left side of the screen as containing a list of different forum categories.

Actually, the forum comparison is appropriate, as Shareflow is much like a forum, prettied up and on steroids.  Shareflow has some benefits over a typical forum platform, though.  Shareflow has a webclipper that you can use to clip URL’s and site descriptions into a Flow.  You can also embed YouTube videos, and snippets from other pages.  Shareflow doesn’t have Wave’s ecosystem of gadgets, but allows you to embed events, maps, and other files into comments.  Shareflow’s handling of events is particularly handy, as Shareflow takes into account a user’s timezone, and also allows users to import the event into iCal.

You also can control who has access to each Flow.  The left side of the screen will list each Flow that you started, along with the Flows to which you’ve been invited.  All in all, I’ve found it quite easy to navigate.

One Major Shortcoming

Shareflow has one major shortcoming, that will eliminate it as a choice for many users.  Specifically, Shareflow does not allow for true collaboration, since only the originator of a comment can edit that comment.  At 40Tech, we often will come up with a collaborative list, and we don’t necessarily want a “boss” of that list.  We all want to be able to add ideas to the list.  The only way for other users to do add to the list is by posting replies to the initial comment.  This means that users can’t see the entire list at a glance, but must scan the entire Flow.  The only way around this is for the comment originator to go back and edit the original comment to incorporate the changes of other users.

In their blog, the Zenbe folks have explained that this keeps Flows more tidy.  It might, but one size doesn’t fit all.  To be a true collaboration tool, Shareflow should at least give the originator of a comment the choice of allowing others to edit the comment, even if that isn’t the default behavior.

In addtion, this shortcoming does not allow users to edit a document together, in real time.  That may have been Wave’s most compelling feature.

Features

User Interace

The part of Shareflow that you might notice immediately is that it is easier on the eyes than Wave.  Unlike Google, Zenbe appreciates the aesthetics of white space.  It is easy to scan over Flows, comments, and replies, since they are spaced apart, with replies appearing in a comment bubble.  Both comments and replies also include the avatar of the commenter.  Top level comments have a larger avatar, while replies to comments use smaller avatars.  If a comment generates several replies, than Shareflow collapses most of those replies, and presents a “view more” link to expand them.

The top right of each comment includes a count of the number replies to that comment, as well as a dropdown menu with several choices, including the ability to edit your own comments, to send an email, and to get a permalink to a comment.  You can also star and flag your own comments.

Email Integration

Shareflow also integrates with email.  Unlike Wave, which only gives you a brief blurb when a Wave is updated, Shareflow emails you the complete content of new comments or replies.  A “comment on this” link within the email takes you directly to the Flow, ready to leave a comment.  You can also simply reply to the email to add a comment to a Flow.

Each Flow also gets its own email address.  Simply send a message to that address, and the content of your message will be added to the Flow.

Desktop Widget

If you like widgets, then Shareflow has you covered, offering a desktop widget that runs on Adobe Air.  The widget is pretty simple, changing appearance when there is new activity in your Flows, and allowing you to review new comments and replies.  This review is basic, showing all of your content chronologically.  You can reply from within the widget, but your reply, as best we can tell, just gets added as a reply to the end of a Flow.  You can also drop files onto the widget, and they’ll be attached to a Flow of your choosing.

Mobile

Shareflow also offers a free iPhone app.  The app lists each of your Flows, and allows you to add comments to your Flows.  You can’t, however, add individual replies to comments.  Your comments always go to the end of the Flow.  The app does allow you to start new Flows, invite new members to a Flow, and add photos to a Flow.  You can’t edit a comment, though.

A mobile app is also available by simply logging into your account via a mobile device.  Interestingly, the mobile site offers greater functionality than the iPhone app, allowing you to edit comments, which you can’t do via the iPhone app.  The mobile app doesn’t allow you to add new users to a Flow, though.

RSS Feed

If you’re an RSS fan, you’ll like that Shareflow allows you to monitor Flows via RSS.  Each Flow gets its own RSS address, to which you can subscribe to monitor any additions to the Flow.

Needed Improvements

Highlight New Posts

In addition to our major gripe (the inability for other users to edit a comment), we have some other smaller concerns as well.  Chief among these has to do with difficulty spotting new comments and replies.  Unlike Wave, new posts are not highlighted.  I’ve taken to using the email notifications as my primary method of identifying new posts, but this doesn’t help if I’m working in Shareflow at the time.  Shareflow should highlight new posts with a different background color, or consider a “new post” notification button that would take you to the new post.

Highlight Online Users

We’d also like it if Shareflow would indicate whether a user is online or not, by changing the appearance of the user’s avatar.  I found myself at times wondering how soon until the other Flow participants would see my messages.

Ability to Archive Comments

Another nice addition would be the ability to archive certain comments or replies when they are no longer relevant (or when the original commenter has edited his comment to include the reply).  This would keep Flows more tidy.

Hold Our Place

Shareflow also has an annoying habit of refreshing the screen when someone else updates a Flow that you are reading.  That can jump the focus of the screen, causing you to lose your place.  I’ve also found that, when editing a comment, the text being edited sometimes will scroll off of the visible window, making it impossible to see what I’m editing.

Public Flows

Shareflow also does not appear to support public Flows.  For anyone to see a Flow, you must invite him or her to it.  Whether by design or not, the lack of a public option means that Shareflow can’t be used as a social discussion tool.

Fix Email Notification Preferences

Finally, Shareflow doesn’t always seem to remember preferences with respect to email notifications.  Bobby disabled everything but daily updates, but continues to receive emails notifying him of every update.

A Wave Copycat?

If Shareflow sounds like an attempt to copy Google Wave, Zenbe would ask you to think again.  As they pointed out in a blog post in July of 2009, based upon when Wave was announced, they would have had to “deploy a real, complete, useable product, along with everything needed to actually support a public service, all in less than a month.”  That post also points to an early YouTube video and blog post as proof that Shareflow was in the works before Wave was announced.  Finally, Shareflow was available prior to the release of Wave.

Price

Shareflow is free with 1 GB of storage.  What isn’t clear is how that storage is measured.  Do only Flows that you originate count towards that 1GB?  Or, if you participate in a Flow that someone else originates, and that person uploads a large file, does that upload count both towards your limit, and the limit of the other person?  Unfortunately, our emails to Zenbe support on this question have gone unanswered (which is another concern – but we don’t want to base an opinion on a company’s level of support based on one incident).  Zenbe also offers additional storage, for a price.  You can get 5 GB of storage for $20 per month, 15 GB for $40 per month, and 30 GB for $80.

Conclusions

Perhaps Zenbe didn’t copy Google Wave when creating Shareflow, but the comparisons are inevitable.  The biggest difference – the inability to jointly edit comments and replies in Shareflow – is a shortcoming in the eyes of anyone looking for a true collaboration tool.  Still, the other features of Shareflow, like the desktop widget and the more complete email integration, make it a compelling product.  Match that with Shareflow’s pleasant interface, and you have a strong contender.

Have you tried Shareflow?  What did you think?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Ge.tt: File Sharing for the Technology-Challenged
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement Part III – Socialwok
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement, Part II – More Google Services!
• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• Producteev Gets a Massive Upgrade: Android App, Windows Desktop App, and an All Around Makeover

The biggest issue, however, that kept Wave from mass adoption, was that people just couldn’t figure out what to use it for. In an effort to address such concerns and continue building out the platform, Google has released several major feature updates over the past months; the most recent of which aims to increase the usability of Google Wave by adding use-templates for new waves, and the ability to remove a user (including yourself) from a wave.

Hit the jump for details.

Remove Users From a Wave

Since January, 2010, Google has added Read Only and Restore features to Google Wave, as well as Wave Notifications (to email), several usability improvements like shift-enter to end editing a topic, and the incorporation of some of Wave’s real time editing and collaboration features into Google Docs. The one seemingly basic feature that was missing from Google Wave, however, was the ability to stop participating in a wave, or the ability to kick someone who is annoying you or not playing nice.

This is not as basic as it seems, due to the interactive nature of Wave. For example, if you remove someone who has participated in a collaboration and is no longer a good contributor or you have had a falling out with, cutting them off from all access to their work to that point could have some serious repercussions, both for Wave and on a general legal front. Google now feels they have solved the potential issues by allowing users removed from a wave to have read only access up to the point they last logged in to that wave, before they were removed from it.

This adds a much needed layer of control over the chaos that Wave can sometimes become. Google’s blogpost on the new feature paints a few interesting and colourful use cases for this feature, such as removing your boss in the wee hours before he or she sees the rather derogatory remark you made about them on the wave in the night’s drunken stupor… Real life scenarios. Got to love Google for things like that.

Use-Templates for a New Wave

When you first open Wave, you are now presented with a 6-button dashboard that allows you to set up a Wave with a single click via a preconfigured template. You can also access these templates from the ‘New Wave’ dropdown menu. The templates are meant to make it easier and faster for you to set up a wave based on some of the more common uses for Google Wave:

Notes/General

This is your basic Blank Wave. Just open it up and start typing. You can configure a blank wave anyway you like.

Discussions

With the Discussion template, Wave starts you off with an easy format that works much like a Microsoft Word template. Just click in the Topic header to put in your own, and fill out the topic in the proposal area. In addition, you and those you add to the wave will have access to an “Are you in favor?” widget that makes for easy, poll-style voting. The discussion takes place below this first entry, as is normal to Wave. As with any of the templates, you can configure and customize it as you would any wave.

Tasks

The Tasks template provides you a basic setup for GTD-style (see our post on Getting Things Done) task management. Don’t look for any advanced features here – this is still just a text-based wave. No checkboxes or anything like that are forthcoming so far, but it is a great way to do some collaborative task tracking and discussion, especially if you are already working on a project in Wave.

Tracking Meetings

The Meeting template saves you the time you would have to spend organizing a meeting notes/minutes wave. This is a cool use for Wave, considering that people can add themselves to the Attendees list (once added to the wave of course), and can even add their own agenda items. The meeting could take place online, offline or both and multiple people can take the minutes or add notes and highlights as the meeting goes on.

Document Creation

the Document template allows you to set up a collaborative (or solo) document quickly and easily. The base organization of this template gives you examples of some of the most used or useful document editing features. If you aren’t very versed with navigating the Wave interface, you can always copy and paste the various elements as needed. One of the most useful features of this template is the included widget that allows you to set the document-wave as Draft, For Review, and Final.

Brainstorming

The Brainstorming template gives you a few guidelines and general organization for a productive brainstorm session, and sets you up with a very basic Paint gadget to help you illustrate ideas visually.

The slew of new features that are steadily being pumped out by the Google Wave team is slowly but surely ensuring the longevity and increased use of the Wave platform, even if it is only truly successful once the technology is adopted by third parties.

What do you think? Do these features make Wave more useful to you? What features would you like to see in Google Wave?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It
• Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces
• Google Wave Isn’t Dead After All, Just Changing Hands
• The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement Part III – Socialwok

My personal take on Buzz and Wave is that  Buzz is a flop, and is useless in its current form, while Wave is useful, but for limited purposes.  Read on, though, for how Google can save both services from irrelevancy.

Photo by lotospin.

Is that the sound of crickets chirping in Wave and Buzz?  I have no use for Buzz, as I have no "real life" friends using it.  Even if I did, they would get drowned out by users with many followers, since Buzz floats an item to the top every time someone comments on it.  I find Wave to be somewhat useful, but only because I write for this blog and use it to collaborate on some matters.

Am I the typical user?  Could Buzz and Wave be headed the way of other products that Google has abandoned?  It might seem odd to write about the death of products that are so young.  Wave, after all, is still in what Google is calling a "preview" stage, and Buzz was only released in February.

It may be early, but Google needs to take some steps to capture the minds and hearts of users.  How can it do so?

Google Needs to Merge Buzz and Wave

Google needs to merge Buzz and Wave into one product – BuzzWave (or whatever Google would call it).  Yes, they serve different purposes, with Wave being more of a collaboration tool, and Buzz serving as a discussion platform.  As it is, though, users already have too many islands to which they must row, in order to participate online.  Merging them would make it easier for users of both to participate, and remove any dilution of the services.  It isn’t too hard, either, to envision how the two services could be melded into the Mother of All Tools:

• When a user posts a buzzwave, Google could allow the user to mark it as editable by others, or not editable.  If the former, it would work much like a Wave currently works.  If the latter, it would be similar to Buzz.
• A BuzzWave entry then would need to be clearly marked as collaborative or not.
• Google could combine the best features of each – the collaborative features of Wave (when needed), along with the discussion-spurring goodness of Buzz.
• This new BuzzWave would need a basic interface, so as not to drive away casual users.
• Advanced features still should be available under the hood, for those who want to dig deeper.
• BuzzWave would need to present users with an easy method of inviting friends to participate in a particular discussion/collaboration.

Would changes like this spur you to use "Buzzwave" (or whatever Google would call it)?  How else could Google save these two services?

Here are some related posts that might interest you:

• Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For
• And We’re Back . . . Hopefully SOPA and PIPA Aren’t
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• Crazy Things That Happen Every 60 Seconds On The Web
• Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It

1. Make a wave public

Wave doesn’t have an easy "make this wave public" button when you create a wave.  One flawed way to make a wave public is to add public@a.gwave.com to your Wave contacts, and then select that contact when making a new wave. The problem is that public@a.gwave.com will disappear from your contact list when you exit Wave. Fortunately, there is a bot that will make waves public. Add easypublic@appspot.com to your Contacts, and then add that contact to any wave that you want to make public.

2. Link to a wave

What if you want to send someone a link to a wave, outside of Wave?  Perhaps you want to post a link on your web site (such as what we did with the 40Tech Public Wave), or perhaps you want to send a wave link via email.  To do this, simply drag the wave into a new, temporary wave.  In the temporary wave, a clickable link will appear. Right click, and copy the link properties, and paste those properties wherever you want the link to appear.

3. Jump to the first new comment in a wave

If you want to jump to the first new comment in a wave, click on the little green number that shows how many new notifications there are.

4. Jump from one new blip to the next

Once you’re at a  blip (Wave’s term for a comment within an individual wave), you may want to cycle through all new blips.  Do this by tapping on the space bar on your keyboard, which will take you from one new blip to the next new blip, even if it takes you to a different wave.

5. Reply in the middle of a comment

What if you’re working collaboratively with someone, and want to reply in the middle of that person’s blip?  Double-click on a word in the middle of the blip, and you will see an option to "reply" or "edit." Click the reply link that appears, start typing, and your blip will now appear after the word you clicked, with the original blip being split at that point.   To hide your "interrupting" blip, click the bubble to rejoin the original blip.

Have you been using Wave?  Do you have any tips for new users?  Share them in the comments, and also jump into the the 40Tech Public Wave.

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