Wave Terminology

As with any new technology it comes with a box full of new lingo to help describe what it is. Google Wave is no exception to the rule. For those that want to learn what the Google Wave Framework is, or at least what it can be used for the following list will help anyone get to grips what this new communication platform is all about:

Wave: A Wave can be thought of as a conversation or a thread within an Internet forum. Any number of Waves can exist, with any number of contributions by one or multiple people at any one time. Basically put, a Wave is a conversation.

Wavelet: A Wavelet is a snippet of a Wave as defined above. Therefore by definition, a Wavelet is much smaller than a Wave. For a real-life example, imagine talking with your group of friends about the same thing. This can be considered as the Wave. Within Wave, small conversations may start, i.e. Tom might start talking to Rachel whilst everyone else in the group are still talking about what film to watch. Tom and Rachel's conversation is referred to as a Wavelet. Each Wavelet has its own behaviour and history.

Blip (BLIP): A Blip is a single, very discrete message within the conversation/ Wave. Using the previous example a Blip could be '..how's it going Rachel..?'. A Blip can handle other forms of media attached to the Blip, i.e. other conversations, film clips, images or even file attachments. Because Google Wave supports real-time communication, any one Blip can be published like a document or held within a pending state whilst the author and contributors complete the Blip.

Gadgets: A Gadget is very similar to a Facebook, or an iPhone application. A Gadget can be developed by a third party company that once approved, can be used within a Wave. Gadgets are programmed using the OpenSocial framework. For more information on Google's OpenSocial platform click here.

Robots: Robots are an automated participant within a wave. They can talk with users and interact with waves. They can provide information from outside sources (i.e. Twitter (Twitter)) or they can check content within a wave and perform actions based on them (i.e. provide you a stock quote if a stock name is mentioned).

Document: A Document within Google Wave terminology refers to the content within a Blip, i.e. the actual corresponding files, characters/ words associated within the Blip.

Extension: An extension is a mini-application that works within a wave. So these are the apps you can play with while using Wave. There are two main types of extenisons: Gadgets and Robots

Embeded Wave: An embeded wave is a way to take a Google Wave and the conversation within it and place it on your website. Users could use this as a chatroom, as a way to contact you, or for something more.

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Last updated: 12 October, 2009