Below are the most popular desktop applications and plug-in for Google Wave. Now keep in mind, Wave is very simple and doesn’t have a lot of bells, whistles and blinky lights, so the applications don’t really have a lot to work with just yet. I am sure later on, more apps and more features will be available.

1. Waver

Waver is an Adobe Air app, making it the only cross platform app of the bunch. It offers the same basic functionality as going to the site, just in a smaller stand alone window.

Using the two buttons and the search bar, you can manage your contacts, view lists of Waves, create new and reply. There is a search bar just like in Gmail and the same types of search shortcuts.

All of these are pretty much just like you have on the site. The main difference, is you only have one window, whereas the Wave site has multiple panes.

2. Google Wave Add-On

The Firefox add-on is what I use most frequently. It is very basic and more of a notifier/shortcut link than anything.

The add-on resides in the statusbar. When one of you have a new or updated Wave in your inbox, it will display the unread count. To get to your Wave inbox, simply double click the icon; that’s it.

In the settings menu, all there is to adjust is the intervals when it checks for updates, the timeout and your username and password.

3. Waveboard

Waveboard is a Mac only desktop application. It is another simple application that allows you to access your Waves in an identical stand alone screen. There really isn’t any noticeable difference between the web app and Wakeboard aside from the Growl-like notifications. An iPhone app on the way.

This application is a lot like using the next one on the list.

4. Fluid

Fluid (Mac only) isn’t specifically a Wave desktop application, however is does give you all of the same functionality you would get from going to Google Wave’s web page.

If you would like to read more, here is a post from last spring that will explain it a little more in depth.

In a nutshell, Fluid allows you to “separate” a web page from your browser and turn any web app or web page into a desktop app. It even adds a Dock icon. By doing this, the new “application” functions like the web application, but doesn’t need a browser.

As you can see, this will give you all of the functionality of Google Wave, because it IS Google Wave.

Conclusion

All-in-all, these applications are pretty simple. Not because they aren’t doing exactly what you need them to do, it’s because there isn’t a lot to spice up yet. I can see things getting very interesting later on when more people start adopting and defining clear uses for the infant collaboration tool.

What do you think the future applications will need to offer to make your Wave-ing easier?

image credit San Diego Shooter

Fluid is a prism like Site Specific Browser (SSB) for Mac OSX Leopard that allows you to run a specific site like an application. Each SSB is just like any other applications in your Mac system and comes with its complete sets of user tools, including desktop icon, dock icon, menu bar and Preferences page. What makes Fluid different from Mozilla’s Prism is that it makes use of Safari’s Webkit rendering engine and is able to integrate seamlessly into the Mac OS.

There is no installation required for Fluid. After you have downloaded and extracted the zip file, simply click on the Fluid icon to create your first SSB.

It might take a few seconds for it to generate the site, but once it is done, you will find your SSB reside in the Applications folder just like any other apps. When you launched it, you will also see the SSB icon in the dock.

There are some well-thought design in the user interface:

1) When you click on an external link, it will open in a new window (instead of a new tab).This is done so that each browser is specific to only one site. However, the newly opened window will be treated as a child to the parent window and it is always stacked below the parent window.

2) The URL bar is hidden by default to provide more viewing spaces. Since each browser runs only one site, the chances of using the URL bar is definitely lower than a normal browser. To access the URL bar, click the button located on the top-right corner.

Features

1) Dock SSB as an icon in status bar

This is a feature where you convert your SSB into an icon at the status bar. This is useful if you want to have quick access to your site, for example, accessing your Gmail account quickly.

2) Plugins

There are several plugins built into the Fluid package:

Thumbnails plugin

This plugin allows you to view your search result (Digg, Google, Flickr etc) in a cover flow style.

Browsa

Split up your SSB into several panels and load different sites in them. This is useful if you want to compare two sites side by side.

Why would I need this?

Most people will argue the need for this type of SSB when you can simply open up multiple tabs in a single browser.

First of all, whether there is a need for this or not is really up to personal preferences. Some prefer their favorite sites to be like an application on the desktop where they can launch it quickly while others prefer to launch multiple tabs in their browser.

Secondly, when you open up too many tabs in a browser (such as Firefox), there is a tendency for it to take up a lot of memory, and could lead to crash of the browser. With SSB, you won’t have such problems.

Thirdly, Fluid does provides some useful features targeted for single site. For example, you can create a SSB for Gmail and dock it in the status bar. You can then easily check any incoming mails by clicking on the icon. With Google Gear, you can also use it as a native desktop application.

In my opinion, Fluid does not aim to replace the current browser that you are using. Instead, it is meant to complement your current way of browsing the Web by providing you a more convenient (and personalize) way to access your favorite sites.

What’s your feel on this?