It is really interesting to hear that Google and more specifically the Google Wave team as acquired the Etherpad. It is interesting that Google Wave already are creating acquisitions, to get more knowledge. Congratulations to the Etherpad team.
Etherpad is an online wordprocesser, to enable you to work with multiply collaborators on a document. I have just tried to use Etherpad to test it out, but it is really easy for users to get started on. The nice feature is that you can share your documents with anyone else and they can collaborate on the document without having to create an account.
I have not tried etherpad before today. But it is a really simple product and makes the process of writing some text really easy also for new users.
Etherpad has two really cool features:
The timeslider on etherpad is really need. It saves all keystrokes so you can see all keystrokes. But more importantly it works really fast, you can just drag it back and forth and the update is instantaneously.
It is possible to save and restore to revisions. When you have saved a revision you can go back and restore from this point. Using revisions will make contract work much easier because you can agree on a version and you can also undo some of the changes you have made.
I’m really looking forward to see the two features in Google Wave and get some of the benefits that Etherpad otherwise ill contribute with.
The Tic Tac Toe game by Sung Wu, is a gadget created in Adobe Flex. It is using the Wave-as-Client to create the interction between Javascript and Flex.
The game is not complete since a user can play both sides, which is not the idea of Tic Tac Toe. The game is more a demonetration on how it is possible to use Flex/Action script.
The gadget is using Flex and demonstrate how easy it is to create gadgets in. I think it rather interesting to code the gadget in something other than Javascript, because it allows for different users to programme the gadgets. I think it is possible to make some gadgets look nicer in flex than you can in HTML/Javascript.
In wave you would often like to show some code to get some feed back on it. A gadget which can help with it is wave code prettifier by Milan Andrejevic . It is a gadget you can put into your Wave and you can then get formatted code in your wave.
The code gets highlighted as you type. The language is determinate automatically, or you can overwrite the control.
You can enter you non formatted text on the top in the small window, and then the formatted text will be showed in the button panel. The buttum panel will be expanded as a result of data typed.
When you type something data is directly shared to the other users. If you type fast on a large text you are sometime send to the buttom of the field and complete the text at the end.
I would also like to see that gadget to have difference between edit mode and view mode. That way you would only see the formatted text as an ordinary user.
The gadget is written in Javascript and Jquery and uses a lot of standard libraries for code highlighting. The code in the gadget is only 29 lines. That is impressive.
When you are having troubles with managing a large group of people you can use the Invity robot.
The Danish Wave news site called “BølgenDK” which we talked about a little while ago is currently on a subscriber list of 500. Using this manually can be a rather difficult job. I was working on a robot to help with the project, but found this robot and it seems to cover the basics of managing lists more user-friendly.
The robot is really easy to use.
Just add pw-invity@appspot.com to the Wave where all the participants are in
Select create new Group
Create you new group and add pw-invity@appspot.com and you will be able
This is demonstrated in the video that I have created.
What I like about the robot is the connection to the with the gadget. The guys behind the gadget has spent some time on describing how the gadget/robot interacted. It seems really simple to make this work. It seems like the robot can see data from inside the gadget.
The only thing which is a bit irritating, is that the gadget is reloading when you press one of the buttons. That is the only thing which does not work optimal.
This robot can also be used to have conversation within your company, where you want to have the same people in the wave every time.
Now it seems like the story about 12sprints have leaked a bit more. Since Cmswire and also a blog on SAP Developer Network, so I will also be able to write about it.
12sprints or constellation, which it also has been know as, i a service developed by SAP.
I got access to 12sprints on Monday as a part of the SAP Mentors forum. I’m not sure how much, I can talk about the product. I’m not allowed to show screen shots of the application before the launch. On the frontpage of 12sprints.com are some screenshots of the information provided by SAP/12sprints.
I have just tried using 12sprint a little to see how it feels like, so I’m unable to fully compare it to Wave. It has a nice interface and are able to use the functions quite easy. I have not seen how the multi user functionality works, or if it is real time.
12Sprints is a tool for creating decisions based on the response from multiply persons. So it is target more towards enterprises, and but it could probably also make sense to use 12sprints when you need to make decision with your spouse on where to go on vacation.
To assist with the decission making are diffrent tools like pro/con tables or cost benefit tables, you can use collectivly. It would be the same kinds of tools you would use to make a decision in a group normaly.
Compared to Wave 12sprints are more structured and probably easier to find and comment on decisions in. I see that you can have more unstructured data in Wave, but with the right tools/gadget in Wave you could create an environment close to 12sprints. I’m going to look future into how 12sprints works and when to use it over Wave.
Follow 12sprints on twitter, to get more updates on the release.
