Sky on Tech

Many people I've talked to were excited to finally get their Google Wave invitation, only to realize they were all alone in the latest document collaboration system. What good is collaboration if you have no one else to work with?

Here's a quick hint to get you up and running and experimenting with Google Wave until your friends catch up: searching for public waves.

By adding the with:public qualifier to your search terms you can find public Waves to see how other people are using Wave and to start working with Waves yourself.

There are a growing number of Waves out there that are open to anyone with Google Wave access - public waves, and they are easy to find once you know how.

We'll create a new Search by clicking on the + icon next to 'SEARCHES' in the Navigation panel.

Give the search a Title that makes sense to you, and then start the Query with the string with:public and then the terms you want to search for.

You can now run the search to find all the pubic Waves related to your search term. Open one up to see how others are using Wave, and start contributing!

It is that simple! Once you've added a few searches you'll also notice the small arrow to the right of each search which will open a set of actions you can take with the search:

• Rename the search
• Reorder the searches
• Change the background colour in the list
• Edit the details