14 DAY TRIAL // A couple of days ago, Google Shared Spaces sprung up as a way for Wave gadgets to live on even as the platform is retired. At the time, there were some bugs and it didn't seem like a finished product. Google is now making the official announcement and the Labs experiment is ready for everyone.
"In August, Google announced that Wave would no longer be developed as a standalone product, but that the Wave technology would survive in other products," Douwe Osinga, Software Engineer on the Google Shared Spaces Team, wrote.
"Today, I am happy announce the launch of Google Shared Spaces in Google Labs as one of those off-shoots," he announced.
"A bunch of us who had been working on the Wave APIs were brainstorming about what it would take to just run a Wave gadget. Developers had been doing wonderful stuff --building real-time mini applications--and rather than let that effort go to waste, we wanted to create a new way for people to continue to use these tools and games," he explained.
Google Shared Spaces is now listed in Labs making tens of gadgets originally intended for Wave available to users. All the gadgets are meant to be used socially, hence the name, and are generally focused on a single purpose.
From the Yes/No/Maybe Gadget, that Google showcased when it first revealed the gadgets feature for Wave, to a AccuWeather gadget, to a 20-faced dice, you may find something in there that may be just the thing for you.
Each gadget comes with its own chat, itself a Wave gadget, and you can share it with friends via the link provided. The functionality is rather bare-bones, just the minimum necessary to ensure that the gadgets can run.
You will need a Google, Twitter or Yahoo account to use any of the tools in Shared Spaces. For Google, you will need a public profile set up to be able to log in. A safer bet is just using Twitter as an identity provider.