I have been back and forth in my opinion about Google Wave, one day hailing it as the future and the next day dismissing it as overhyped bloatware. Regardless of the day however, more and more of my friends are starting to show up on Google Wave, so I have been trying to use it pretty regularly to see if it really is as amazing as some people tout.
If you ignore the current slowness, bugs, and usability issues, the remaining problem with Google Wave is that there currently is no simple way for you to be notified that there is a new wave in your inbox. Hiroshi Saito is working on a simple menubar notifier for Google Wave, but I have yet to get it to work. Waveboard, the first major Google Wave app was released a while back, but it is little more than a unique browser window which loads the Google Wave webpage. The little more however, is significant, because Waveboard includes Growl, Dock, & menubar notification of unread waves in your inbox. This means that those of you who are looking for a Google Wave notifier can look no further. [update: the new version (0.9) adds some very useful new features].
For those of you who don’t mind having the Waveboard icon in your dock, use the app as it is. Those of you looking for purely a notifier can remove the Waveboard icon from the dock using a great app called Dockless (which I’ve written about before). Dockless lets Waveboard run without a dock icon, meaning you get menubar notifications and Growl notifications without all of the visual clutter. [Update: The developer of Waveboard told me that hiding the dock icon will be included in preferences of future Waveboard versions.]
For the those of you who want the ultimate notifier, you can get push notifications about new waves in your inbox using Waveboard’s Growl integration and the amazing Prowl app for iPhone. There is also a Waveboard for iPhone, which works seamlessly with Prowl too.
Regardless of how you use it, Waveboard is a great sign of things to come.
Update: The developer of Waveboard, after discovering this article, has generously donated three(!) Promo Codes for the Waveboard iPhone app to the readers of this site. All you have to do to get one is leave a note in the comments of this post explaining what you currently use Google Wave to do. The promo code recipients will be chosen at random by Monday, November 9th, 2009. Good luck!
Update: Still have two promo codes left – please leave a comment if you want them!