The Best of Google Wave Tips 2009

Happy holidays to all of you Wavers!

We’ll admit our blog is still pretty young, but we thought it would be cool if we compiled a list of the best Google Wave tips so far based on the amount of views and your comments. We appreciate your support so far and how you’ve told your friends about us. We’re excited to see what 2010 will bring in the world of Google Wave.

Here we go.

How Do You Delete a Wave?

Google Wave is intuitive, but it isn’t quite as simple as email. In Wave, you can’t just hit a “Delete” button to get rid of a wave forever. Deleting aside, there are other options to manage your waves; there are some big differences between unfollowing, archiving, and trashing waves (which is recommended reading).

Despite these useful options for managing waves, people still seem to be a bit stumped about the basic function of deleting a wave. Well, the reason why you haven’t figured out how to “delete a wave” (in the most conventional sense) is because you can’t.

How to Use Poll Gadget 2.0 in Google Wave

Google Wave has a basic “Yes/No/Maybe” gadget but this can be a bit limiting when you have a question for participants in a wave that goes beyond a yes, no, or maybe answer. However, Poll Gadget 2.0 allows you to create a custom poll with custom options and settings. It’s one of the best customizable poll gadget that I’ve used so far.

Here’s how you can add it to a wave.

How to Add a “Whiteboard” in Google Wave

The Napkin gadget allows you to insert a “whiteboard” right into Google Wave so you can collaborate with live, handwritten drawings. You can customize brush color and size, and you have options to undo or clear your drawing.

Surely, this won’t necessarily allow you to create any artistic masterpieces, but it is a good way to share visual ideas if you happen to think that sort of way.

It’s really easy to add to your wave. Here’s how you can do it.

Google Releases URL Shortener, may help Wave

Google just recently announced the release of their new URL shortening service, goo.gl, and Facebook appears to be testing their own too, fb.me. Yup — of course we wouldn’t ever need any more URL shortening services.

Nonetheless, URL shortening services have taken the world by storm. These services simply generate short URLs that redirect to the long URL. TinyURL (among others) pioneered this concept, with bit.ly quickly outdoing others, providing stats (i.e. clicks and other information) for bit.ly-shortened links. Thanks to these services, users can send small URLs to their friends, instead of gigantic paragraph-like links.

Twitter has probably brought the most popularity to URL shortening services; users have to be able to share links and other information in under 140 characters. Considering Google and Facebook are entering the URL shortening service market, that tells us just how important Twitter is.

So what’s this have to do with Google Wave?

How to Embed a Remote MP3 File into Google Wave

Google Wave is meant to be a platform that allows collaboration on a variety of different levels. When you wave, you’re not just limited to an exchange of text like traditional instant messaging, but you can even include elements like video and audio.

WavePlayer is a gadget that allows you to embed MP3 files in a wave. You’re embedded MP3 will appear in an embedded audio player like this:

Here’s how you can do it.

Google Wave Adds Undo/Redo Options

Undo and redo are functions that many people rely on when typing their documents. These two important functions have not been available on Google Wave until now. To undo something in your wave, press CTRL/CMD+Z. To redo, press SHIFT+CTRL/CMD+Z. For more hotkeys and shortcuts, we have them here.

How to Embed a Web Page into Google Wave

Google Wave gadgets add increased functionality to Wave. The “<iframe>” gadget allows you to embed a web page into Google Wave.

This can be helpful if you want to share a website with participants in a wave without the extra step of having to click an external link outside of Wave. I also know some people will create a public wave around the topic of their website and then embed their website into the public wave as a form of sharing it with others.

In order to embed a web page into Google Wave, you’ll need to click the “Add Gadget by URL” button in the toolbar of the wave.

Unfollow, Archive, & Trash Explained

In Google Wave, you have a variety of choices for how you want to organize the waves you’re interested in and not interested in. It’s helpful to be able to make the distinction between unfollowing a wave, archiving a wave, and moving a wave to the trash.

Unfollow or Follow a wave

When you are added as a user to a wave or participate in a wave, you are set automatically to follow that wave. A followed wave is one that remains in your inbox and any updates to the wave are reflected in your inbox.

If you’re searching for public waves, and you find one that interests you, you can open that wave and read it without following the wave. In order to follow the wave you must have the wave opened and then click the “Follow” button in the toolbar of the wave.

Google To Open Source EtherPad

Google acquired AppJet last Friday; once the acquisition took place, Google announced that they would discontinue EtherPad service at the end of March next year. Google has now changed their action in response to the outcry of EtherPad users; now, EtherPad service will not be discontinued until Google releases EtherPad as open source code.