Google Wave: Up and Running

Managing Your Inbox

Your inbox is the gateway to the numerous waves in which you are (or were) a participant, and making sure that you keep your inbox well organized is just as important in the Google Wave Client as it is in email. I am paying special attention to the management of your inbox because this is a fundamental task in the Google Wave Client. My hope is that you will be able to use the Google Wave Client more effectively by keeping waves easily accessible through predefined searches and folders, by following waves that are of interest to you, by archiving or unfollowing waves that are no longer active or relevant, and by diligently marking spam waves.

Searches and Folders

Setting up predefined searches is a great way to keep track of waves that contain specific keywords but that do not necessarily fit into a specific category. For example, if I were a journalist covering Central American news, I could set up predefined searches for specific country names, including “Guatemala,” “El Salvador,” “Honduras,” and so on. Thus, I could still easily access waves that include a specific country name even if those waves have no other commonality.

You can set up predefined searches by using the Add button in the Searches section of the Navigation pane or by using the Save button at the bottom of the inbox whenever you use keywords to filter your inbox. Once you’ve set up several searches, you can change the background color and order of the searches in the Navigation pane. I typically ...