Embed API Improvements: Viewing public waves without a wave account

We recently introduced a new API for embedding waves, which includes a powerful new feature: anonymous, read-only access to public waves. Prior to this launch, webmasters could embed waves into their sites, but visitors could only see the content of the embedded wave if they had a Google Wave account, were logged in, and had access to that particular wave. Now, all waves with public@a.gwave.com (or a properly configured Google Group) as a participant can be embedded in a website so their content can be read by those who don't have a wave account (or simply aren't logged in).

You can view an example of this below or see it in action by visiting the KitchenSinky walkthrough documentation.

The new embed API also provides some optional parameters, like the ability to display participants in the the header panel or to include the toolbar. With an embedded wave, users are able to discuss topics in realtime and even catch up by playing back the exchange. Additionally, it provides a mechanism for staying involved in the conversation without requiring the user to constantly check the host site for updates.

To get started with the API, please visit the tutorial and consult the API reference.

If you're just interested in quickly getting a wave embedded on your site, you can simply make the wave and then get the code to paste into your site using the new Wave Element.

As you're diving in, here are a few ideas for ways to make use of embedded waves:

• Use a wave to do live-blogging (or "live-waving" as we call it) about breaking news. You can provide up-to-the-second commentary for an election, earnings call, sporting event, or product announcement -- and even combine points of view from multiple bloggers into a single wave.
• Display realtime RSVPs to an event with the Yes/No/Maybe gadget. Participants can also add comments for everyone to see.
• Publish documentation or other articles via embedded waves. It's easy to update and readers can simply follow the wave to stay in the loop on changes. For example, we publish the Wave API release changelog as an embedded wave.
• Take advantage of the active robots API and create waves programmatically for embedding in a variety of sites, such as a private messaging system for a social network, a shared collaborative workspace in a productivity tool, or as a customer support system.

We hope you find this new API and this new level of access useful, and we have more improvements to the embed API on the way. For example, at the moment, embedded waves do not work in Internet Explorer (even with Google Chrome Frame), but we will be resolving that issue.

We look forward to seeing what you come up with. If you have questions or comments, please discuss in the forum.

Posted by Dhanji R. Prasanna, Software Engineer, Google Wave team