Google has quietly launched a new Labs project today – Google Shared Spaces. Based on Google Wave gadgets technology, Shared Spaces is designed to be an easy way to create and share collaborative applications.
As Shared Spaces uses Wave technology, there are already 50 different gadgets available, including shared maps, scheduling tools, polls, Sudoku games, and drawing boards.
Shared Spaces seems to be a fairly easy way to quickly share a workspace with a friend or colleague. You simply share the space’s URL to invite others to join. There’s a chat box for real-time communication, but it appears that the work space persists, meaning you can use it for longer-term work as well.
So, will more folks adopt Wave in this format?
According to the description on the Google Labs site, Javascript developers will be able to build their own gadgets in order to build more Shared Spaces tools. However, the link to Shared Spaces via the Google’s Labs page returns an error message, so perhaps Shared Spaces – (oh dear) much like Wave – isn’t quite ready for prime time.
(Here’s the direct link to Shared Spaces.)
