Gaming with Google: Article Series Outline

Throughout the series of articles, I'll be creating various setups across Google's wide range of services, beginning with a Google Group specifically for The Dice of Life. We'll assume the role of a gaming group to demonstrate exactly how these tools work together in an integrated manner as well as provide a tangible outcome as we progress through the series.

This article provides an outline of each of the services and systems and how we'll be utilizing them throughout the project.

The first three services will be covered together in the next article. The remaining services will each have their own article.

1. Google Account: You'll need this to access various Google Resources.
2. Google Contacts: Maintain a list of your contacts. Other Google services and applications will reference these contacts automatically as you type them in to invite others to share those services.
3. Google Groups: The main method through which we'll communicate as a group.
4. Google Calendar: Schedule gaming sessions and share busy/free times with the group.
5. Google Docs: Share spreadsheets, documents, presentations, and PDFs with your group.
6. Blogger: Create a in-character and/or out-of-character journal of sessions with multiple members of the gaming group as authors of the blog. Great for distributing the workload of recapping with comments from members filling the gaps. Use Google Docs to publish posts.
7. Picasa Web Albums: Upload and share maps, character portraits, virtual tokens, etc. all of which can be downloaded or linked to from the other Google applications.
8. Google Reader: Subscribe to, share,and comment on feed items from useful sources including your Google Group, Picasa Web Albums, your campaign blog, etc..
9. iGoogle: Pull all of the above tools together in a custom interface directly on your iGoogle home page.
10. Google Sites: Create a wiki-like campaign Web site for notes, distributable files, character backgrounds, setting information and dashboard gadgets, including embedded Google Docs and Google Calendar.
11. Google Wave: Run a play-by-post or real-time chat campaign or run a game that's a hybrid of both. Also create campaign notes, player's guide, and more. Update: I was fortunate to be among the first recipients of Wave invitations.

As Google's services change and improve frequently, this list might include additions and changes. If such a change occurs, I'll repost this blog with the respective updates.