Today, Google Wave announced WaveThis, a way that allows you to create a discussion in Wave from a webpage you’ve visited.
They’ve offered a few ways to do this.
The first way is to install the WaveThis extension for your Google Chrome browser. This adds a WaveThis button you can click on at anytime to create a discussion with your friends in Google Wave.
The second way is to add a WaveThis bookmarklet to your Chrome, Firefox, or Safari browser. Simply drag the following link to your browser’s bookmarks bar: WaveThis.
Then, click this button from your bookmarks whenever you want to create a conversation in Wave about the webpage you are visiting.
Webmasters and bloggers can also take advantage of WaveThis. They can add a WaveThis button (such as the one to the left of this post) to their webpages or blog posts that allow any visitors to click that button and share and discuss the website with friends or coworkers in Wave. Give it a try!
To format the link for this button, you would use the following structure, while replacing the necessary elements for your webpage:
More thoughts
The WaveThis button is reminiscent of the “Retweet” button for sharing on Twitter, “Digg this” to share on Digg, and “Like this” to share on Facebook. This is Google’s step towards making Wave a more easily accessible platform to share and discuss information with other people.
Douwe Osinga, software engineer for Google Wave, says the WaveThis button allows you to create a “small group” discussion about a particular webpage you are visiting. He says, “[WaveThis is] less public than broadcast tools and more interactive than using email.”
Right now, I would have a hard time finding a practical use for this as most of my social networks are on Facebook. It’s so much easier to share a link on Facebook and get instant feedback from the 700 of my “friends.” However, I can see Wave having a particular advantage in that you can limit the conversation to only a few friends. I can see potential for this if it catches on.
Questions for Our Readers
As an internet surfer, do you foresee yourself utilizing the WaveThis extension and button very much? What are your thoughts?