The one thing I don’t like so far about writing in Google Wave is the formatting. If you are trying to copy-paste your writing into a wave…good luck! I attempted this and was disappointed. (changes are made everyday, I will update if this becomes easier/fixed) It seemed every other word was crammed together. Here is an example:

“…There wasa strangeodor coming from thekitchen. It wasn’t your normalfood smells, but something anynose would identifyimmediately as out of place. I wasted notime in reaching thekitchen door, sure ofwhat I would find. When mybrain caught upwith my eyes asto what Iwas seeing I was still dealingwith the shock. Spilled outin the middle of the kitchenfloor, lay the entirecontents of therefrigerator in amassive pile witha smalltrail of oddsand endsleading tothe window. Theworst part was therotting remains of agopher at the topof the pile. Thatmust have beenthe non-food smell thathad sent merunning. Nothing like the scent of death toget your blood pumping inthe morning, I thoughtas I stepped overthe pile andclosed the window…”

(If any are wondering, this is not the passage I put into the Wave to test editing, but I did just write this for the example.)

Now, as you will have noticed, there is a multitude of words that are smashed together. That gets pretty irritating. It takes time to add in all the spaces that were lost, and you also have to format the paragraphs and this is all before you begin the editing process. It takes less time to adjust it for Wave than it would to retype it directly in the wave, but it sure makes me misty-eyed thinking of how I have taken for granted the copy-paste function.

Just thought I would share this tidbit. Let me know if you are having the same issue, or maybe somehow I am ‘doing it wrong’ with the copy-paste. Hey, I have been known to over-think and screw up less complicated things in life. I am not perfect.

What do you think? Would this little technical flaw hold you back from putting your writing in a Google wave? Why?

Thanks for reading! Hope you found this a little insightful, incase you are preparing to get in the Google Wave trend (if the steady invites continue, fingers*crossed* for more people). As always, Wave responsibly and I welcome all comments, suggestions and questions!

Wave is a multi-user, wiki-collaboration platform which hopes to make email obsolete, among other things. Wave is seen as a game changer and its popularity alone makes it a platform you will want to have a presence on.

In working to build your presence, let’s start with the basics on navigation and utilizing Wave. After all, you can’t build a presence if you are in the dark about how to navigate and use the darn thing.

Let’s set up your Wave experience.

Editing Your Profile:

Every time you make a wave, comment a wave or add to a wave, your avatar gets added to both the top of the wave and in each comment you make/edit. Anyone that knows about branding knows that your avatar is a visual signature. It is a good idea to pick the avatar you want people to associate with you and what you are on Wave to accomplish.

To edit your Profile information, look to the bottom left-hand of your screen at the ‘Contacts’ panel and click on your name at the top of the panel. A small wave-like blip should open up with an option in the lower right hand of the bubble for ‘Edit Profile’. Click on this link. This link will take you away from Wave in a new screen. Edit your information as you would like others to see it, including your avatar photo. (On occasion, the avatar has not shown up, you may have to do this several times. This is a beta platform, have patience and understand that Google is working hard to fix errors.)

Search for Friends and Add Contacts:

Now that you have had a look at the ‘Contacts’ panel, let’s get familiar with it. At the bottom right hand of the ‘Contacts’ panel, there is a little ‘ + ’ button. Go ahead and click on that. By entering an email address, ending with @googlewave.com you can see which friends you have in Wave already. You can add them as you find them.

Next to the ‘+’ button that we clicked on to get to our ‘Add Contact’ feature, there is a ‘Manage Contacts’ link. Click on this if you would like to see a list of your contacts. This will open a new screen. In the future, there are hopes that ‘Groups’ made in the ‘Manage Contacts’ panels will transfer into Wave, but at this time they do not have that implemented.

Linking Twitter to your Wave:

Twitter is everywhere anymore. If you are an author looking to increase readership through social networking, I assume you have a twitter. If not, I would direct you to this awesome article on why it is important to have a twitter account and how to best utilize the platform, professionally.

You have twitter? Okay, this is for you. Go to your contacts panel. Remember the ‘+’ ‘Add Contacts’ we went to? You are going to add this contact to your list: tweety-wave@appspot.com and look for the Tweety contact to show up.

Once you have Tweety in your contacts, go ahead and click on the blue avatar in your contacts panel and select ‘New Wave’ from the options the new bubble gives you. Within a matter of a few seconds, the new wave should be created with only you and Tweety the Twit-bot in the wave. Be sure not to add anyone else, or any other bots except Bouncy. (We will cover Bouncy momentarily). Tweety should give you a pop-up window and ask you to fill in your information. Go ahead and do this. It should load your twitter updates in a few minutes.

At the top of the wave, you will see the ‘What are you doing’ and you can just post till your little heart’s content! A word of caution, it does not yet have a 140 character counter implemented. You will have to use your best judgment as to how long the post would be. The post will post to your twitter account with the words ‘from Wave’ underneath but is a little slow in type-to-post time, but not unbearably so.

What about Bouncy?

Anyone using Wave, in my opinion, should add Bouncy to their contacts. Bouncy is an application-bot that will kick bots out of a wave if they begin to wreak havoc or just slow the wave down too much. At this time, Bouncy does not eliminate ‘Public’ or human participants.

To add bouncy, click your ‘+’ button at the bottom of the contacts panel and add: bouncy-wave@appspot.com

When you want to ‘bounce’ a bot, you simply select the participant at the top of the wave and you will have an option to ‘Bounce’ but only if Bouncy is in the wave. It is a good idea to add Bouncy to all your public waves. It only takes one nasty-irritating bot to ruin a wave experience. This should save you a lot of headaches in recreating a wave and worrying about another bot getting added. One of the best safeguards Google Wave team has added, by far.

Look for the next post on Wave use for authors as we begin to expand out of the fundamentals and into the meat and potatoes of a Wave presence for authors and writers everywhere.

by bgblogging http://www.flickr.com/people/bg/

Photo Credit: bgblogging

As most of you are aware, I have been shamelessly promoting my book utilizing my access to Wave. Hey, I am a writer and a self-published/unknown at that. You have to promote where you have the opportunity to promote.

I have started a wave on Wave entitled ‘Author Writing Group Authors Corner!’ which I will probably change to something prettier in the future. This is a test – I repeat – this is a test. I am looking to see how many authors/writers made it onto Wave. I am trying to create a central point for writers and authors to get together.

(To Search in Wave type the following -”  With:Public Authors Corner! ” or “Title: Authors Corner!” Without quotes)

I have dreams of writers finding fellow writers on Wave to create support groups, editing teams, volunteer-editing/reading teams, the sky is the limit. I think the document collaboration tool is ideal and made for writers. I am giddy over the idea of having a group of reading/writing likeminded people that I can just ‘drop’ into a wave and get twenty extra eyes on my errors.

Why do I want a list in my Wave contacts titled ‘Editor Team’? If you are a writer, you know that it is easy to overlook your own errors. Your eyes auto-correct your mistakes as you read. It is science, not laziness. If you didn’t write it, if you are just reading, it is easier to catch mistakes made by others.

And the best part is that email is brutal for this process. With a wave I have one copy instead of twenty. Why is one copy such a big deal compared to twenty? When you are compiling feedback and everyone caught the same thirteen mistakes, you start to hate reading the same critique over and over again. It would be great to hear the comment once and at the same time have everyone be on the same page, literally.

Compiling data, going over the same section twenty times to look for editor marks and merge all marks into one document can be brutal. With wave, this becomes obsolete. I am very excited for editor teams.

So far I have only found one other writer on Wave, but over time I hope they come out of the wood-work just like for NaNoWriMo. Writers magically get the sense of needing to seek fellow writers when November rolls around. Why is that, I wonder?

Thanks for reading! Stop by over the next month as I prepare for NaNoWriMo and find new and amazing ways to use Wave for the author community!