Google Wave: Grab Your Board, Surf's Up!

I love everything Google, as seen by my most recent post on The Next Great Generation. So when I heard about Google Wave I just had to have it. It was new and exciting. Finally my a friend of mine, Melanie Wong, was able to send me an invite and my life is forever changed.

As soon as I got my invite I set up my account and presto! I was on the Wave bandwagon... But what came next? I only had two contacts (Melanie and Dr. Wave). What was I supposed to do? How did all of this work? It was a lot to take in and understand. When people asked me what I wasn't I didn't even know what to tell them. A combination of chat and e-mail? That just wasn't sufficient. It just is Google Wave.

Finally, Melanie and I collaborated on an article together, via Google Wave and it all made sense. We were able to write together and talk in real-time. We could see what each other was typing and editing. It wasn't just that I sent her my work and copied and pasted it together with hers. It really was a team effort.

Gizmodo had a post about how the Declaration of Independence would have been written today via Google Wave. In a way, you can kind of understand exactly how it works with this example. Multiple people working together to write or collaborate on an article, idea, project and so much more.

However, as much as I love Google, it isn't perfect. Wave is still in preview. It's kind of slow and a bit buggy. They haven't ironed out all of the kinks and there is room for a lot more improvement. Today, I wasn't able to send out more invitations because they shut down for maintenance. I got Gmail while it was still in beta and I know that they worked through all of the kinks there. It is possible that Google Wave will be a huge milestone in Internet innovation.

The bottom line: The idea is great and I know that I will definitely be using it in the future.

The Next Great Generation: Why Glee?

As you may or may not remember, I wrote about The Next Great Generation and how I am involved in this project and would be updating your periodically on when my articles were published.

My first post was published today and it's about Glee and how I feel as though they ultimately reduce our generation to stereotypes.

Let me know what you think!

The Next Great Project

This semester in college I found out about a great opportunity to write for a blog called The Next Great Generation, organized by Edward Boches. It's all about the Millennial Generation (18 to 25 year olds) and our views on the world geared towards and older audience so they can better understand us. I learned about this opportunity from Melanie Wong who is my Account Executive at my college's own marketing firm. When she mentioned the opportunity I was excited to start writing and gain some valuable experience.

Melanie is an editor for this online magazine and I work as a writer under the Brand section. Currently, her and I are developing an entry about Google and how much it plays such an important role in our lives. I couldn't live without Gmail, Google Reader or even Google Chrome. We even collaborated through Google Wave.

So far I have written about Glee and Windows 7 and am in the process of having my work published on the site. Needless to say, I'm incredibly excited about working on this project. I'm gaining such a great experience while still exercising my love for writing and blogging. Stay tuned and I will give you updates on upcoming posts and information about The Next Great Generation.