Have you scored an invitation to Google Wave, only to find yourself scratching your head about what to do with it? Fear not–Gina Trapani and Adam Pash of Lifehacker have released The Complete Guide to Google Wave, now available for preview online.
I’m still going through the book myself, but it looks like it will help address some of my issues with Wave, the philosophies beneath it, and Google’s system for distributing invitations. For example, I have a better grasp on how to participate in public waves–seeing real-time collaboration taking place shows the potential for Google Wave as a communication tool, while showing the need for books like The Complete Guide to Google Wave even for people like me who have been online for quite some time.
The Complete Guide to Google Wave is released under a Creative Commons license, meaning others may use content from it as long as certain rules are followed. A PDF version will be available for purchase this month, and a softcover print version will be out in January.
While we’re talking about publishing details, it’s worth noting that the book itself is an experiment of sorts by the authors. Rather than going the traditional route, which for technology books tends to result in obsolete texts in a relatively short time, Trapani and Pash are publishing The Complete Guide to Google Wave themselves, releasing “early and often” to make sure the contents of the book are always current with the state of Google Wave. The web-based version will always be free, and the PDF and print versions will be updated frequently. Read the behind the scenes details about this concept of publishing–it will be interesting to see how it compares to traditional models in the long run.
Image source: The Complete Guide to Google Wave by Trapani and Pash
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Tags: collaboration, communication, google wave, publishing
