Remember Google Wave? The product Google launched with much fanfare and had to eventually shut down? Well It is called Apache Wave now? No? Well, I don’t blame you for that, but Google did take a big gamble with a futuristic product which was fit for 2020.

However, move aside Google Wave. Google has quietly launched something called as Shared Spaces. According to their official about page, here is what it is meant to do:

A shared space is an easy way for you to share mini-collaborative applications, like scheduling tools or games, with your friends or colleagues. We’ve put together this slide set to explain more

Now, if you have read our initial impressions about Google Wave, you would have noticed that this smells something familiar? Well gadgets in Wave, without Wave?

Yes, this is exactly what Shared Spaces feels like, gadgets in wave without it. However, don’t expect it to be simple enough to use. I am still trying to figure out this thing, and though it not difficult to use the gadgets itself, I am still wondering how it will be useful. Well, I need sometime to figure this out, you can try it out yourself at http://gadgetspaces.googlelabs.com/. I will write a more in-depth post about this shortly.

You might also want to check the presentation about what Google Shared Spaces is actually about in the embedded screen tour below.

(h/t @steverubel)