Google has a couple of new things in the works.

One of them is yet another attempt to squeeze into the social media game called Google Plus or Google+ or G+ or whatever.

G+ uses friend circles which are frankly more like walls. We use these walls in real life so that different friends don’t react negatively. In this way the G+er can bitch about work to one circle of friends while remaining friends with the oblivious boss on another circle. Be interesting to see if anything slips. Google sum it up delicately and well as ‘sharing just the right things with just the right people’.

G+ also has an obvious ‘I’m available’ hangout state which might be helpful to those that get inundated with bothersome requests for attention if they dare check their social site.

I do not yet have an account there as they are trickling out the accounts but will probably let you all know more when I get in. I’m not going to pretend I have high hopes. It’s not that I think G+ will be technologically deficient and indeed it’s not hard to be ‘better’ than Facebook. The core thing is most people are already on Facebook and it’s that gaping hole of no friends that is going to make it hard for G+ to succeed.

Google have also been busy in Gmail, their successful webmail service. To see what it’s about go to email settings then themes then select one of the Preview themes. This cleaner new theme is probably going to be the new default soon.

Both Microsoft and Google have made quiet announcements highlighting a push into PC gaming.

Microsoft’s Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reckons Windows 8, will be designed with gaming in mind and released in 2012. Microsoft did some hilarious back-pedalling from that position so you can decide who you believe, the CEO of the company or the company.

You can get some sense of where Microsoft is going with gaming below. The video is an internal release showing the concepts and principles of what the Windows Gaming Experience (WGX) team hopes to accomplish. This likely ties in with the changes being made to Windows LIVE. Microsoft have also clearly seen the potential of the virtual items market.

Google isn’t sitting still either with their new emphasis on Chrome Web Store to act as the gaming marketplace. A position which slots in nicely with their Chrome OS moves. I have looked at this store but there’s a very long way to go before they outdo even the likes of Apple’s money machine.

So PC gaming is returning but it’s with a twist. More social, more browser and web focused. No doubt Steam will get in this too at some point as it’s already halfway there. However this needs great games and frankly Farmville won’t cut it. A lot of opportunity there for Indy devs who can wind through this maze.

Google are getting ready to launch their Chromebook running the ChromeOS.

These are not your usual netbooks. They are totally browser and cloud computing based which means it has some severe restrictions along with the good points of cloud based computing. In many ways it’s more like an iPad than a netbook.

On the plus side

• Boots in 8 seconds
• “All-day battery life”
• Cloud computing means your stuff is automatically synchronised no matter where you access it. You don’t have to worry about hard drives, backups and most computer maintenance.
• Looks like the entire experience is built on reducing customer time overheads as much as possible. For example, updates are completely automated. Which means more time where you spend doing what you want.
• Competition for Microsoft and Apple

Problems:

• Cloud computing means you lack control of your stuff. Google can use the information it collects about you. Google can block your access if it wishes and any problems with it require Google’s help. In my experience Google’s support is quite bad.
• If it cannot run in a browser it cannot run at all. Poor flexibility.
• It’s not really that cheap
• Another App Store sales point
• Realistically requires the internet access to be of use.

My take is this is a lot of money for a dumb terminal which gives Google control and access. I would not buy it but a Chromebook may suit some people who are very browser focused.

When one uses Google Wave, like any communication form, there’s the competing elements of signal and noise.

Already the signal is quite strong.  Most technophiles already have access but we’re all trying to find out how best to use this medium.  It’s obviously strong in collaboration and seems to be a great balance of email and instant messaging at the social or community level.  It’s good for working up collaborative documents too for business and other development.

Public waves are out there, many of which are quite informative, from camping groups, the things to do in my local city and even how to use Google wave itself.  One public wave is even committed to a manhunt of the killer of the four police in Seattle.

But there is also noise.  Many gawking tourist-type comments, hihi-type comments, empty replies and so forth.  As Google Wave accepts more people into the fold we’ll have a more mainstream mix and with it will come the spam.  Already I’ve seen a few primitive spam efforts.  If Google doesn’t improve its strategy public waves will be inundated with spam chocking out their usefulness.

What do you use Google Wave for?

I got an invite from a friend and I am indeed thrilled to get a look at it. If you are one of the extremely lucky people who have escaped the hype and know nothing about Google Wave, allow me to corrupt you.

Google Wave is a new communication tool;

Real time – what you see is updated as people type. Yes you can actually see the text inserted etc. Which makes for great visibility of your spelling errors but also helps the free flow of communication.

Collaborative – built from the ground up to let you work together with people to cocreate.

Embeddable – much like YouTube videos you can insert them anywhere. For example into a blog. I might even try that. It can also have stuff embedded into it like photos, videos and also;

Extensions – Like FireFox, Google Wave has extensions you can add in to make the experience as feature rich as you like. There’s aren’t many yet but I’m sure it will balloon. I’ve seen suduko, a simple poll, Google maps and conferencing

Another way to look at it is to compare with other communication tools. Despite what Google might claim it’s not really anothing new. What is new is that it has taken to best feature from many online communication tools such as email, twitter, instant messaging (MSN), facebook, etc

Now that I’ve actually seen it, I remain excited. It’s going to be a the huge improvement I had hoped it would be. It will replace many communication forms. Time will tell which ones but email at least.

It’s layout is similar to email. There’s contacts you can drag to add to waves (think of them as enhanced email message threads). The waves are sorted by search, folder or inbox, for example. For now Google Wave is preview and terribly unstable with large waves which have many people involved and ‘blips’ which are pieces added to the wave. It seems to run better on Chrome as one would expect.

I see it becoming a common collaborative tool and intend to use it as such myself.

Google Wave is grossly overhyped but only in the marketing mememe sense.. The sheer number of people who want it without having much clue what it actually does is staggering. The content is solid and not overhyped. The waves are coming.