Mary Jane's Niche

Before the advent of the internet, it was so hard to communicate with relatives, friends and loved ones who are living or working abroad. Then, we had to use the “snail mail” or send telegrams which takes weeks or even months to reach the recipients. But now because of the advancement of technology and the internet, its so easy to get in touch with the people that we love. There’s instant messaging, emailing, social networks, SMSing and now I have also discovered Gloo which is a new and super fun way to share information with my friends and family with Globe Broadband. Gloo is a web application that allows us users to collaborate on virtual spaces by embedding and manipulating images, notes, videos and even creating doodles in real-time. And another great thing about Gloo is that users that share a space have the ability to chat with other users who are also online as well as send SMS or MMS.

By the way if you’re thinking that Gloo is a reply to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Sandbox then you’re wrong because let me note that Gloo is not a social media site, it is more of a real-time online collaboration tool. By creating a space, me and my friends are able to share photos, post videos, chat and doodle all at the same time and in real time. Isn’t that awesome? It has really cool features and possible uses too like scrapbooking, and you may also use it as a business page and make it a place for online group meetings, planning events, collaboration tool for business meetings and collaboration board for school meetings. It can also be a place for parents to interact with their kids and of course your family from abroad and for teenagers it can be your barkada’s message board!

So you guys should really start checking out this cool new web application and use it and have fun with it at the same time. Inquire about Gloo now so you can start having fun!

I first heard about Google Wave through Plurk last summer after Google announced it at their annual Google I/O (Innovation In The Open). I was able to watch a short introduction via YouTube. I linked the video below so you could check it out. I got curious about this exciting new tool which is why I decided to sign up for it so I will be able to try out the preview once they release it to users. Google Wave was initially released only to developers but then they extended it to nearly 1 million users beginning September 30th. The initial 100,000 users were each allowed to invite 20 additional users. And because I signed up early I guess I was one of the initial users who are allowed to invite 20 Wavers! I finally received my invite last October 14th! And I have invited some of my friends to try out Google Wave with me.

So we’re currently using Google Wave Preview. And according to Greg a.k.a. Dr. Wave, Google Wave is a new tool for real time communication and collaboration. A wave is a shared space where you can discuss work, communicate with friends and colleagues using texts and videos, photos, maps and other interesting stuffs. This is just the preview of the tool so it’s still a bit rocky. So the Wave Team is going to need our help and feedback to make the product even better.

Aside from the real time communication and collaboration, Google Wave also has extensions that lets us add rich content and also integrate with other systems. To learn how to use the extensions, Wave has a screencast and a help center to teach us how. Wave Sodoku by LabPixies, Conference by Ribbit Corporation, Video Chat Experience by GixOO Ltd, Trippy by Lonely Planet, AccuWeather.com, Map Gadget by Google and the Yes/No/Maybe Gadget by Google are just some of the cool and useful extensions available for installation for the users. And if you’re one of the developers, the Extension Installer by Google is also available for installation.

Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with so that’s why  we were given the chance to nominate 20 people that we would like to add. We are still only using the preview so it’s still a bit wonky at times but still this tool is bound for greatness.

I still have 5 more invites up for grabs so if you want one just leave me a comment here! And to those who already have a Google Wave account please add me using my Wave address – maryjane.cabrera@googlewave.com. Looking forward to your waves!

If you guys want to learn more about this new tool from Google, check out the links below:

• Google Wave
• YouTube
• Wikipedia
• Mashable
• Google Operation System
• The Official Google Blog

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory is sending a rover to Mars in 2011 so they’re inviting and encouraging everyone to participate by filling up a simple form with our names so we could have our names included on a microchip that will be in the rover. Isn’t it exciting? So even if we can’t go to Mars physically at least our names could get to go. So if you want you could join in the fun too!

weeeee!

of course my name’s not going anywhere without his name too.