Remember Google Wave, Google’s new communication and collaboration tool introduced last year during Google I/O 2009? TechAirlines covered it last October and even had an invitation giveaway. However, as time went by, the buzz about Wave gradually disappeared because of the slow performance and many users didn’t find it very useful. But that doesn’t mean Google hasn’t been working on it.
As of May 19, 2010, about one year since it was first introduced, Google Wave is finally open to the general public. Users are now free to sign in using their Google Account or through their Google Apps domain with no invitation required.
Wave has changed a lot since the days where everyone was desperate for invites, which were even up on eBay. New features added since include email notifications, an extension gallery, permissions (like Full and Read Only), the ability to remove users from a wave, and more.
Google Wave as of May 2010
New users of Google Wave as of now seem to receive 25 invites upon first sign in. This is similar to Gmail, where the invites can still be sent but are no longer needed to sign up.
Google Wave is also open to all Google Apps users. The domain administrator must activate the Wave service first in the control panel by clicking Add New Services.
Add Google Wave to Google Apps domains
The Google Wave logo now says Labs rather than Preview.
I just tried Google Wave earlier and I notice that the performance is significantly better than it was a few months ago.
Have you been using Google Wave recently? Have you been noticing any improvements in features and performance? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
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