Google

E-mail notification for new or updated Google Wave

A few days back, this feature was introduced in Google Wave. This new feature allows you to setup E-mail notifications for new Waves and updated Waves i.e. new and updated Blips or messages in a Wave.

To enable E-mail notifications, login into Google Wave. Move your mouse over Inbox (on the left). Click on the Arrow (pointing downwards) and select Notifications.

You can opt to get notified about new and updated Waves immediately (as it happens), hourly or weekly. The notifications are sent to the E-mail address associated with your Google Wave. This will be the GMail or Google Apps (in my case) E-mail address at which you got the Google Wave invite.

I tested it with “immediately” option and found that Google Wave sends an E-mail when

• A new Wave is created and you are added as a participant
• A new Blip (message) is created in a Wave in which you are a participant
• When an existing Blip is updated in the Wave in which you are participating

Google Wave will not send a notification when:

• It has already sent you notification for a new or updated Wave. It will not send any further notification for any update in that particular Wave, till you log into Google Wave and click on the new or updated Wave.

Issues/Bugs:

• The notifications are sent even when you are using Google Wave – logged into it and seeing the Waves. Why a notification when I can see a new Wave(s) being created and updated in front of me ? So what if I choose to click on them after sometime. Ideally the notifications should be sent after I have closed the Google Wave window on my Web Browser. I said “closed” and not logged out because logging out of Google Wave may mean to log out from other Google apps too.
• The “Immediately” notification is not so immediate. Few notifications were delayed by as long as 14 minutes! Though at times I have received the notification within a minute. This does not fit well with a real time app like Google Wave. Immediate notifications must be “immediate”, as it happens and within seconds.
• The notification settings link in the E-mail (notification) just opens Google Wave and does not show the Window or popup to change the settings. Note that this bug is a known issue as per the Google Wave blog.

Good to have in the next version:

1. There should be a provision to send notifications to any E-mail address and not only to the associated Gmail or Google Apps E-mail address.
2. The notification settings, besides being system wide and applicable to all Waves, should be present for individual Waves too. The notification settings for individual Waves should override the system wide settings. This way one can subscribe to notifications only for the Wave in which he/she is interested.
3. If point 2 is implemented, there should be an exclusive option to get notified about New Waves created by others – where you are added as a participant.

I was wanting this feature so much that last year I wrote a Robot for my own use (with a hard coded E-mail address) to send me notifications for updates in Waves. I add this Robot to the Waves of my interest. I even wrote an article in PCQuest magazine about this Robot. For those who are interested in the code, refer to this link at the PCQuest forums to download the article with the code intact. If Google Wave could bring the Notification settings to individual Waves, I would no longer need to use my Robot.

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