Yep - I think that article gets it spot on. I got my invitation yesterday morning and the first thing I used it for was to work with one of my co-founders to work up an agenda and discussion points for a more formal meeting later in the day while talking on skype. During the day before the meeting we were able to polish it up and make points not to forget.
Perfect - something that has been missing from our working methods since we all work remotely.
and yes we have kind of been using google docs for this kind of thing - but wave is a much better fit
Wave is an open protocol and third-party wave servers, which Google won't be able to search, will be peers in the wave network. So I don't see Google Wave giving any more access to raw communication than they have already.
I'm not sure if your comment is sarcastic or not - but isn't Gmail a way to slurp/index all the world's emails, text messages, and similar communications? It isn't like a bunch of engineers were sitting around and thinking "Gmail doesn't get us enough user information, how can we make a new one to get more?". Their thought process was (conceivably) more along the lines of "Gmail doesn't quite work how we want it to, what can we do to fix that?". Slurping all of the information out of it is just a nice benefit.
That said, I haven't actually tried to do any work on Wave, so I can't speak for its usefulness. As a pure email replacement, I find it comparable to Gmail, minus the inferior keyboard shortcuts in Wave.
"To most geeks, the main problem with email is spam."
He lost me right there. You are not a geek if you have a problem with spam. Spam? I never see it. It all goes into my +inbox-spam folder and I spend < 1m/day scanning it before I delete the contents.
The problem with email is there is too much of it. Actually damn messages I must read and deal with.
This is where you lost me, because it just supports the real intent of the author's statement, which is that spam is a problem that results from design flaws in email. Despite the author's use of the word 'geek' being unnecessary, not all geeks are happy with myriad sometimes-adequate workarounds to fundamental design flaws. I'm glad you've made your peace with spam, though.
I didn't suggest that geeks have a problem with spam. On the contrary, because that problem has been on the geek radar for many years, it is largely resolved. And because most of the other problems have not been on the geek radar, they're not resolved yet.
The problem with email is there is too much of it. Actually damn messages I must read and deal with.
And my point is that Wave can help reduce the clutter and chaos of these messages by presenting them in a more structured, intuitive, and versatile form. So instead of having 50 emails discussing the text for the new homepage, you can have just one Wave.
He clarifies what he means by spam immediately after the sentence you quote:
"So the main problems for geeks are that they’re signed up to so many services that they get inundated with notifications, monthly newsletters, automated messages, and shreds of spam that manage to get through GMail’s spam filters."
"Spam" was probably the wrong word to describe emails that are automated or informational, but requested; however, your view doesn't appear to disagree with his.
If your problem is that you have too much email from real people that must be evaluated and responded to, your problem is not with email at all, but rather with human organization. You have too many people relying on your input for too many things and that has nothing to do with technology. Offload work to an assistant, or outsource some functions, or grant increased decision making responsibility.
Agreed, although I don't think I've actually looked through my spam folder in at least a couple years. GMail's filters are pretty damned good. If an email didn't make it through, I consider it the same as the old "lost in the mail."
Yep. Outlook killer is a great way to put it. I guess Google tried to do that with GMail, and Google Apps for your Domain, but only managed to kill off Exchange (in small businesses). GMail still suffers from many of the same issues as Outlook, in terms of collaboration (though it did solve both the spam and the storage problem). This is a more complete solution that has a chance of replacing Outlook because it's just a lot better.
Then again, Microsoft doesn't need to ditch Outlook - they could just release Outlook Wave - after all, it's all open-source. That would be nice - we'd all win from such a move.
Thanks for that insightful article. I only just recently got my Google Wave invitation (finally) and I for the first time logged on and was a bit lost.
I knew I might be on the initial phase of the next direction of communication/email and knowing that this might one day replace Email and/or IM kept me thinking that I am visiting something grand, even if I still had a small idea of what it actually does.
Google Wave is such a hard thing to explain to friends/family and non-techies...this article really helped me try and stitch a clearer picture.
I am, however, worried about the amount of spam/bots that might come with these waves as soon as they're made public.
Google Wave does not solve problems directly, just like SMTP/POP/IMAP per se does not solve the problem of communication. You need email client to communicate over SMTP/POP/IMAP, and the better your client is the better you deal with your problems (e.g. Outlook's feature of transmitting the messages of predefined format over SMTP to all the appointment participants helps you manage appointments).
When Wave will be public, I expect plenty of different Wave bots, clients and other type of software appearing out there. This Wave-based software will solve real problems, not Wave itself.
Granted - but I would say the default Wave client already solves a whole host of problems. Remember, Wave is composed of the protocol, the server, and the client as well. If the Google Wave client as it is now is used as a starting point for future Wave clients, then they will all benefit from these features. Conversely, clients that don't solve the problems that Google's reference client solves are effectively inferior.
This closely mirrors my own reaction, after five minutes of examining the introductory videos Google has placed on YouTube. Wave solves a number of problems I've faced for years in corporate environments, and in a much more integrated fashion than the piecemeal approaches that have previously been available.
It also provides a single point of integration. In the past, I've advocated for e.g. bulletin boards to replace email exchanges where information tends to "submarine" into private exchanges. But getting corporate IS to even consider a deployment -- even just a small one for a single team -- was a non-starter. Going rogue would be a termination offense.
If you can get Wave adopted, you solve a whole bunch of problems all at once.
I remain extremely skeptical, though, about the compatibility of Wave as it currently exists with many businesses' requirements for both confidentiality and guaranteed information access -- uptime, an unlimited timeframe into to future, and not becoming locked in to a single vendor platform to the extent that Wave currently seems to imply. A Wave failure on any of these points could quickly destroy a business; so much would be locked up in its data, and if there is no alternative -- even if imperfect -- means of access...
Yes, this. In a corporate setup, you need a messaging system that, for lack of a better description, is like email but persists like a message board. Targeted to a particular user/users but available for the next person to join the team without someone digging through their mail looking for the message.
The problems with adoption of current solutions (wikis, hosted stuff like Basecamp) are that many corporations don't let you host proprietary data offsite, and adding another server is something that is so difficult as to be essentially impossible. Not to mention "another server" could be one of 50 alternatives, all incompatible.
There still will adoption issues, as it doesn't seem like Google is aggressive in pursuing business customers, and I don't know if they have good answers for the questions that will come up. But I see Wave as essentially a protocol designed to solve the same sorts of problems as Basecamp et. al.
The potential ability to install and maintain your own Wave server would presumably nullify a lot of the objections that would exist if it were only available in a Google-hosted form.
Crossing the Chasm had a distinction between applications and platforms. The latter are harder to sell, but scale horizontally, leading to massive adoption. Potentially.
Wave seems to be a platform. It needs a killer app in order to be adopted. Often, this happens through hitching a ride on some bigger change, like faster hardware.
There are plenty of great technologies that never got adopted. It actually seems common for a second-rate but good-enough version of a technology to win, because actual adoption is a huge challenge in itself. Perhaps a greater challenge than creating the technology in the first place. In pg-land, it's the "people want" part of "make something people want".
There's great opportunity here for the one who can apply Wave to alleviate a felt pain.
Only geeks see it as a platform. The current Google Wave client feels like a single, unified application just like GMail (compared to a platform like 'email'). The current wave client _is_ the killer app.
Forums, Google groups, etc, don't have the "edit other people's posts" Etherpad-like collaborative editing. Most of them aren't branchable in the same way Wave is. They generally don't have the privacy controls of a Wave. They don't weave from email-like to IM-like like Wave can. They're not built to allow native clients to interact. And they don't have any federation ability.
You could say that Wave is a bit like Email, Basecamp, Campfire, Etherpad, and a bunch of other collaboration tools, all merged into one unified interface. I'd be scared if I was 37-Signals. From everything I've heard, the feature Basecamp users most like is the discussion system... with Wave, that becomes a lot less worth paying for.
Have you ever tried to use forums or Google Groups in a Fortune 500 company? Plenty of office workers have trouble with basic email. Getting them to use a forum or Google Groups is a lot of work for an IT staff. This is why you have products from Microsoft like SharePoint.
Google Wave is, IMHO, a godsend to corporate IT staff. It's a single application that solves several, very real office collaboration problems. Moreover, you can (or soon will) deploy it in-house, so you don't have to worry about a third-party hosted solution.
As far as I'm concerned, Google Wave solves all the problems of "intranets" and with a few robots and extensions makes a pretty decent project management tool too.
But to have a few use-cases, I found this lifehacker article better (http://lifehacker.com/5381219/google-waves-best-use-cases) (it is a crowdsourced collection from users on how they would use google wave, rather than one person speculating on various uses).
The use-case from the air traffic controller seems to be the best - as if wave was an app made for traffic controllers!
I found the lifehacker article to be a rosy-eyed view of what people would use their idea of what Wave is for. Some of them just wouldn't fly with the current UI and so on. swombat's more on the button as to what Wave actually is.
I completely agree with the author of the article. And he even introduced me to a new, possibly better, way of describing Wave to friends of mine: "it solves the problems with email".
I'm also relieved to see someone else pointing to Scoble's article and noting that he doesn't understand what Wave is about. When I read that article, my respect for the 'king of tech-bloggers' took quite a dive.
Anyways, kudos to you for writing about Wave more sensibly!
This is a good analysis... I also now have Wave account and can very quickly see that it's as a "much-improved" system of email that it's real strength lies.
My only problem right now is I don't have enough fellow friends and associates with a Wave account to use it more and do better evaluation.
Ok, if this article is correct then it's a big problem for Google. Because their entire revenue model is based on earning money from from advertising... I can't imagine enterprise level organisations allowing Google to Earn money via advertising.
I know that Google have made some efforts to make money by directly charging Enterprises but that represents a tiny part of their revenue to date.
In other words, is Wave a much smaller opportunity than they had hoped? And if so, it might just end up being a "side project"...
[+] [-] junklight|16 years ago|reply
Perfect - something that has been missing from our working methods since we all work remotely.
and yes we have kind of been using google docs for this kind of thing - but wave is a much better fit
[+] [-] amichail|16 years ago|reply
One could argue that social media types are more concerned with public communication than private collaboration.
[+] [-] elblanco|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njharman|16 years ago|reply
This is also why Google Voice exists.
Google is serious when they say they want to search everything.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcantelon|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hazzen|16 years ago|reply
That said, I haven't actually tried to do any work on Wave, so I can't speak for its usefulness. As a pure email replacement, I find it comparable to Gmail, minus the inferior keyboard shortcuts in Wave.
[+] [-] e40|16 years ago|reply
He lost me right there. You are not a geek if you have a problem with spam. Spam? I never see it. It all goes into my +inbox-spam folder and I spend < 1m/day scanning it before I delete the contents.
The problem with email is there is too much of it. Actually damn messages I must read and deal with.
[+] [-] pohl|16 years ago|reply
This is where you lost me, because it just supports the real intent of the author's statement, which is that spam is a problem that results from design flaws in email. Despite the author's use of the word 'geek' being unnecessary, not all geeks are happy with myriad sometimes-adequate workarounds to fundamental design flaws. I'm glad you've made your peace with spam, though.
[+] [-] swombat|16 years ago|reply
The problem with email is there is too much of it. Actually damn messages I must read and deal with.
And my point is that Wave can help reduce the clutter and chaos of these messages by presenting them in a more structured, intuitive, and versatile form. So instead of having 50 emails discussing the text for the new homepage, you can have just one Wave.
[+] [-] mediaman|16 years ago|reply
"So the main problems for geeks are that they’re signed up to so many services that they get inundated with notifications, monthly newsletters, automated messages, and shreds of spam that manage to get through GMail’s spam filters."
"Spam" was probably the wrong word to describe emails that are automated or informational, but requested; however, your view doesn't appear to disagree with his.
If your problem is that you have too much email from real people that must be evaluated and responded to, your problem is not with email at all, but rather with human organization. You have too many people relying on your input for too many things and that has nothing to do with technology. Offload work to an assistant, or outsource some functions, or grant increased decision making responsibility.
[+] [-] enobrev|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fjabre|16 years ago|reply
It definitely seems to fit much more than what we've been hearing over the last few months.
He's right. We've all been looking at this the wrong way.. Brilliant piece.
[+] [-] swombat|16 years ago|reply
Then again, Microsoft doesn't need to ditch Outlook - they could just release Outlook Wave - after all, it's all open-source. That would be nice - we'd all win from such a move.
[+] [-] kloncks|16 years ago|reply
I knew I might be on the initial phase of the next direction of communication/email and knowing that this might one day replace Email and/or IM kept me thinking that I am visiting something grand, even if I still had a small idea of what it actually does.
Google Wave is such a hard thing to explain to friends/family and non-techies...this article really helped me try and stitch a clearer picture.
I am, however, worried about the amount of spam/bots that might come with these waves as soon as they're made public.
[+] [-] smikhanov|16 years ago|reply
When Wave will be public, I expect plenty of different Wave bots, clients and other type of software appearing out there. This Wave-based software will solve real problems, not Wave itself.
[+] [-] swombat|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaaron|16 years ago|reply
Wave _is_ an actual application, not a protocol. It uses several protocols to get its job done, but it _is_ an application.
And the wave code is already public: http://code.google.com/apis/wave/
[+] [-] pasbesoin|16 years ago|reply
It also provides a single point of integration. In the past, I've advocated for e.g. bulletin boards to replace email exchanges where information tends to "submarine" into private exchanges. But getting corporate IS to even consider a deployment -- even just a small one for a single team -- was a non-starter. Going rogue would be a termination offense.
If you can get Wave adopted, you solve a whole bunch of problems all at once.
I remain extremely skeptical, though, about the compatibility of Wave as it currently exists with many businesses' requirements for both confidentiality and guaranteed information access -- uptime, an unlimited timeframe into to future, and not becoming locked in to a single vendor platform to the extent that Wave currently seems to imply. A Wave failure on any of these points could quickly destroy a business; so much would be locked up in its data, and if there is no alternative -- even if imperfect -- means of access...
[+] [-] Poiesis|16 years ago|reply
The problems with adoption of current solutions (wikis, hosted stuff like Basecamp) are that many corporations don't let you host proprietary data offsite, and adding another server is something that is so difficult as to be essentially impossible. Not to mention "another server" could be one of 50 alternatives, all incompatible.
There still will adoption issues, as it doesn't seem like Google is aggressive in pursuing business customers, and I don't know if they have good answers for the questions that will come up. But I see Wave as essentially a protocol designed to solve the same sorts of problems as Basecamp et. al.
[+] [-] Maktab|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 10ren|16 years ago|reply
Wave seems to be a platform. It needs a killer app in order to be adopted. Often, this happens through hitching a ride on some bigger change, like faster hardware.
There are plenty of great technologies that never got adopted. It actually seems common for a second-rate but good-enough version of a technology to win, because actual adoption is a huge challenge in itself. Perhaps a greater challenge than creating the technology in the first place. In pg-land, it's the "people want" part of "make something people want".
There's great opportunity here for the one who can apply Wave to alleviate a felt pain.
[+] [-] jaaron|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axod|16 years ago|reply
Why would you use wave over a forum/google group etc?
[+] [-] swombat|16 years ago|reply
You could say that Wave is a bit like Email, Basecamp, Campfire, Etherpad, and a bunch of other collaboration tools, all merged into one unified interface. I'd be scared if I was 37-Signals. From everything I've heard, the feature Basecamp users most like is the discussion system... with Wave, that becomes a lot less worth paying for.
[+] [-] jaaron|16 years ago|reply
Google Wave is, IMHO, a godsend to corporate IT staff. It's a single application that solves several, very real office collaboration problems. Moreover, you can (or soon will) deploy it in-house, so you don't have to worry about a third-party hosted solution.
As far as I'm concerned, Google Wave solves all the problems of "intranets" and with a few robots and extensions makes a pretty decent project management tool too.
[+] [-] gnoupi|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justlearning|16 years ago|reply
But to have a few use-cases, I found this lifehacker article better (http://lifehacker.com/5381219/google-waves-best-use-cases) (it is a crowdsourced collection from users on how they would use google wave, rather than one person speculating on various uses).
The use-case from the air traffic controller seems to be the best - as if wave was an app made for traffic controllers!
[+] [-] jlees|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5park|16 years ago|reply
I'm also relieved to see someone else pointing to Scoble's article and noting that he doesn't understand what Wave is about. When I read that article, my respect for the 'king of tech-bloggers' took quite a dive.
Anyways, kudos to you for writing about Wave more sensibly!
[+] [-] CulturalNgineer|16 years ago|reply
My only problem right now is I don't have enough fellow friends and associates with a Wave account to use it more and do better evaluation.
I'm looking forward to its spread!
[+] [-] ct4ul4u|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tdubya|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JBiserkov|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashishb4u|16 years ago|reply
Also, i guess that should be fine as Google should be intrested in information-base rather than user-base...
[+] [-] kashif|16 years ago|reply
Google wave = Jabber Client + glorified logging
[+] [-] known|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jv2222|16 years ago|reply
I know that Google have made some efforts to make money by directly charging Enterprises but that represents a tiny part of their revenue to date.
In other words, is Wave a much smaller opportunity than they had hoped? And if so, it might just end up being a "side project"...