How to Make a Wave Public for Everybody Access in Google Wave

Many Googlers have received invite to Google Wave from Google or many has received invitation to Google Wave from friends. So can’t wait to try out the popular Google Wave? Or feel little disappointed with the features and functionality that currently available in Google Wave? Google Wave is a web-based personal communication and collaboration tool, without invitations to invite other people, Google Wave may become practically useless.

Luckily Google Wave allows wave to be shared publicly and accessed by anyone and everyone who has Google Wave account. By searching for “with: public”, users can get a list of real-time public wave that been created and shared by other Google Wave users.

For Google Wavers who interested, it’s possible to create new wave and make the wave public (applicable to existing waves too). All wave is created as private wave by default, where only people added to participate in a wave can see its contents. By making a wave public, everybody can search for your wave and join in the discussion, contribute contents, reply to message, or simply browse the wave.

According to Google Wave help, In order to make a wave public, just click on “+” (Add user or group to wave) button on the top of individual wave, and then type in public@a.googlewave.com as a participant.

Note that the error message “public@a.googlewave.com is not a Google Wave account.” may appear in “Add participants” dialog box, and forbidding the “public” group from been adding to the wave. However, it’s possible that user has to just press “Enter” key to make the wave public, and the Public group will appear in user’s contacts list.

However, for user who can’t successfully add the Public group to the wave, here’s a few alternative.

Alternative 1: Use public@a.gwave.com

Try to type in public@a.gwave.com and hit Enter.

Or, click on “+” (Add a new contact) button beside the “Manage Contacts”, and type public@a.gwave.com (not public@a.googlewave.com), then hit Enter to submit and create the Public contact, ignoring the “User does not have a Google Wave account.” error message. You can’t press “Submit” button as it’s disabled.

Then, click on the “Add Participants” (plus sign) button on top of the wave add in the Public (the newly created contact) to the wave by choosing either public@a.gwave.com or Public with a Earth icon to make the wave public.

Alternative 2: Use easypublic@appspot.com Robot

When adding participants to the wave, type easypublic@appspot.com, and hit Enter. Some users may need to click on Add to contacts first before able to adding the user. What the robot does it that it automatically add the Public group to the wave, allowing all access.

Note that by making a wave public, everybody can search, access, follow, join, reply, edit, modify, delete or erase the wave, including making change to the wave or reply messages that been typed by other users. However, creating a public wave has an advantage where user can embed the wave using the Google Wave APIs.