Our first real Wave

We had our first real Wave conversation this morning. It was cool and a little strange at the same time. Google Wave is non-linear. Let me explain ....

I was in an office in Waltham, MA. Gabrielle was in her dorm room in Amherst, MA. And Kira was working in Vienna, VA. All of us were on at the same time and Waved in real-time.

At first, it was like a 3-way IM conversation. But, what made it different was seeing the characters being typed letter by letter. We could watch each other build sentences. We also discovered who really needed the spelling checker. (me) So far, so linear.

Then, we got into an editing frenzy. You can go back and comment on earlier parts. For example, after the conversation went off into one direction, any one of us could go back to an early part of the dialog and pick up the thread. (In Wave, do you say pick up the current?) Your mind bounces back and forth.

Then, we would highlight words and phrases that others wrote. We could cross-out things. Change grammar. Fix stuff written by others. (It was weird to see a comment from "Kira and me" rather than two comments.)

Not used to the non-linear stuff, yet. But, I imagine that it will enable a much freer flow of thought.