Gmail Creator Finally Tries Google Wave. Integrating Gmail with Wave?

Paul Bucheit, the creator of Gmail and co-founder of FriendFeed commented on Wave killing email and said, “Email is not going to disappear. Possibly ever. Until the robots kill us all.” When asked for further comments regarding Wave, he noted that he hadn’t actually tried Wave yet.

Well, he finally did. And didn’t change his opinion.

Why is Google Wave So Hard to Understand?

Google Wave is a pretty new idea that seemingly changes the way people communicate. Despite this massive change in the way people communicate, “waving” your friends hasn’t spread like wildfire just quite yet. This could be for a number of reasons: Google’s somewhat closed “invitation system”, the lack of publicity surrounding Google Wave, or because people just don’t want to change and would rather stick with their email inbox instead of their Wave inbox. In sum, Google Wave still has a lot of people stumped.

Google Wave Hotkeys & Keyboard Shortcuts

Hotkeys or keyboard shortcuts perform certain functions within Google Wave so you don’t have to take your hands off of the keyboard. These can really help speed up the way you work in Wave.

Here are some simple hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts that I’ve found very helpful as I’ve worked in Google Wave. You’ll want to use these.

Navigation Shortcuts

Up/Down Arrows – scroll through messages in a wave

Home – takes you to the first message in a wave

How to Add Twitter to Google Wave

You can even integrate your Twitter account into Google Wave by using a Twitter extension. It’s really easy. Here’s how.

First, you’ll need to add tweety-wave@appspot.com to your contacts.

Secondly, you’ll need to create a new wave and add Tweety to the wave. When you do this, you’ll want to make sure that your pop-up blocker is turned off because the Tweety extension will be added to the wave and a window will pop-up asking you for your Twitter login details.

What is Google Wave?

In the 1960s, one of the first emails was sent and received. This method of communication drastically changed the way we communicate. However, since then, email has stayed relatively the same.

Fast forward more than 40 years later and meet Google Wave. The team behind Google Wave describes it as “what email would look like if it were invented today.” Unlike email, users are able to communicate and collaborate with one another in real-time with text, photos, videos, and much more.

But what does this all even really mean?

Meeting Google Wave For the First Time

When you send an email to someone and they respond back to you, multiple copies of the email are sent, stored, and received. If you continue this conversation, the copies of this email quickly accumulate in your and the other person’s inbox and other folders. Google Wave’s solution is too eliminate multiple copies of a conversation into one live document known as a “wave.”