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Category: Google Wave (page 1 of 3)

Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You’re Looking For

Rizzoma May (Soon) Be the Wave Alternative You're Looking For | 40Tech

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.

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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:

 

Learn how to import your Waves to Rizzoma:

 

Check out Rizzoma and tell us what you think!


Google Wave’s Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It

Google Wave's Swan Song Has a Few More Notes In It | 40Tech

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?


Collaborate on the Fly with Google Shared Spaces

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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?


Google Wave Isn’t Dead After All, Just Changing Hands

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?


The Hunt for a Google Wave Replacement Part III – Socialwok

Socialwok -- A Possible Google Wave Replacement | 40Tech

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.

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