Removing this barrier is huge.  Now anyone can join your Wave, and it’s no longer a case of “well, you need an invite to see it…”.

Today is also bringing us a few of the first great “Live Waves”.  With Google I/O going on today, a few sites are live-blogging by using an embedded Google Wave.  My favorite is the one on Smarterware, but there are others out there too.

If you have Wave and want to get your friends on there with you, send them over and get them in!

Google Wave is now available for everyone! is a post from: Google Wave Info

This is a big step forward, and certainly makes Wave a killer liveblogging tool.  The one catch is that this doesn’t work in Internet Explorer (even with the Google Chrome Frame), but they’ll be fixing that soon.  If you want to try it yourself, just use this simple tool.

Want to see it in action?  Just scroll down.  I’ve embedded a wave in this post to try it out.  Can you see it?

google.load(“wave”, “1″);
google.setOnLoadCallback(initialize);
function initialize() {
var waveframe = document.getElementById(“waveframe”);
var embedOptions = {
target: waveframe,
header: true,
toolbar: true,
footer: true
};
var wavePanel = new google.wave.WavePanel(embedOptions);
wavePanel.loadWave(“googlewave.com!w+Lis328SqA”);
}

Embed a Wave on a site; anyone can now view it is a post from: Google Wave Info

You can read more about it on the Google Wave Help site, but it’s pretty simple:

To remove a participant, click his or her picture at the top of the wave, and then click Remove. If the participant you remove has previously opened the wave, a read-only copy of the wave, with a large red “X” at the top, will remain in his or her account, but it will only contain content up to the point of removal. He or she will not have access to any content added after you that point, and they’ll no longer be able to contribute to or edit the wave.

If you remove someone from a wave before they open it, the entire wave will simply disappear from their account. It isn’t possible to see whether or not any user has already opened a wave.

You can finally remove participants from a Wave is a post from: Google Wave Info

When you start a new wave, you’re now presented with six options:

• A standard blank wave
• Discussion
• Task tracking
• Meeting
• Document
• Brainstorm

All of these are essentially standard waves at their core, but they pre-populate it with fields and widgets that would be useful for that task.  It’s not a huge step forward, but will certainly help new users when they try to make those first few steps.

Google Wave adds a few quick start templates is a post from: Google Wave Info

Extensions are one of the pieces of Google Wave that are really neat, but had been a pain to use.  They were hard to find, and there really wasn’t a whole lot there.  Now, there is a simple “Extensions” link on the left side of your screen that will show you all them!

There is nothing to activate or enable.  Just log in and you’ll see the list.  As of right now there are 18 extensions in there, and I’m sure that number will grow.  Here’s the full list:

(note that the “Accuweather” extension is in there too, but didn’t fit on my screen)

So fellow Wave users, which extensions do you use?  Which one is your favorite?  What would you like to see come out next?

Google Wave unveils the Extensions Gallery is a post from: Google Wave Info

The way they work is quite simple.  You can choose to have notifications send to you either:

• Immediately
• Hourly
• Daily
• Never

The default, as you would expect, is “never”.  However, if you don’t have another system in place it’d probably be wise to turn them on.  Even better, you should encourage your friends to turn it on so they don’t miss something that comes from you.

There are a few minor issues with it still, but it seems to be a very nice implementation.  Useful and customizable, yet simple and uncluttered.

What’s the next feature you’d like to see them add?

Email notifications are finally here is a post from: Google Wave Info

Included are some keyboard shortcuts, how to link one Wave to another, and a few other useful tips.

What other tips have you picked up in your time with Wave? Let us know in the comments!

Ten tips for better Waving is a post from: Google Wave Info

• Better “new Wave notifications” are coming soon. I use the slick extension for Google Chrome, but other options will be coming soon.  “Very soon”, in fact.
• Tighter connections between Wave and email aren’t likely coming soon.
• People don’t like the weird scrollbars, but we’re told that they have a “really really really really good reason to keep them”.  Not sure why, though.
• Google Wave and Google Buzz share little (if any) code.
• Wave doesn’t work well with Opera, but the Opera development team is apparently working on it.

There are plenty of other unanswered questions in there, so hopefully those can be taken care of soon.

What are the biggest questions/concerns that YOU have about Google Wave?

Lots of insight on upcoming features for Google Wave is a post from: Google Wave Info

The latest two they’ve added are User Access Permissions and Restore from Playback.

User Access Permissions

This allows you to add people to a Wave with read-only access.  One neat thing you can do is allow public read-only access to the Wave to show it off to a wide variety of people without worrying about them messing it up.

You can make groups or individuals read-only.  Coming soon will be “reply only” access which allows users to reply to blips but not edit the blips that they didn’t create.

Restore from Playback

If a Wave gets messed up, anyone with full access to the Wave can restore it to a previous point.  This “restore” actually becomes a new instance at the end of the playback history, so others could essentially un-restore it if necessary.

What do you think is the biggest issue that needs to be addressed next?

Google Wave finally adds access permissions is a post from: Google Wave Info

Tips for Google Wave: After using it a bit, he’s developed some techniques that may be useful to those of you just getting started.

Using Google Wave for Task Management: Is Google Wave a suitable tool for managing your tasks?  At this point, I don’t really think it is, but it certainly could become one.

How I Came to Love Google Wave: He’s now pretty much “all in”.  He loves Wave, and appreciates what it can do.  He admits that it has a limited scope of usefulness so far (“if you have no obvious collaboration project to try it on, it doesn’t immediately make sense”) but sees a lot of potential in it.

Also, Lifehacker has just built a great chart that shows the differences between Wave and other current web-based collaboration systems.

It’s a nifty little chart, and certainly makes it look like Google Wave is something to keep an eye on.  Once they fill in those last few boxes at the bottom, it’ll be a very powerful system.

Tips, Tasks, Love and all the rest is a post from: Google Wave Info