I played with Google Wave a couple of days ago and found the interface confusing and felt a bit lonely, so I moved onto something shinier.

Google Wave basically creates threaded conversations that can have documents and objects embedded within them. The Wave can be replayed, so you can rewind to any point in the conversation and see who said what. If that explanation doesn’t seem clear (and trying to describe it without showing is a bit like trying to dance about architecture) then check out Mashable’s Google Wave: a complete guide .

I had another look today and spoke with a couple of folk and explored together. I was very excited that – with my usual ” *this* button looks fun to press” style – I managed to insert a robot into a conversation. The robot looks for any 13 digit ISBN in the conversation and replaces it with a book cover. I tried inserting it in the Librarians Directory Wave and the Library Society of the World Wave too. It only works with OReilly Media items and it seemed to work in Firefox but not Chrome. Instructions on how to do it are here, Reacting to Wave Conversations and Inserting Wave Gadgets with a Wave Robot .

Yes, there is a Librarian’s Directory Wave and yes, the 117 people on it so far did list themselves in alphabetical order.

I was so excited that I made a one and a half minute screencast showing what I did, Google Wave: how to add a bot .