

Shareflow: it's kind of like Google Wave, but... not? - crux
http://www.zenbe.com/shareflow
http://www.zenbe.com/shareflow
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wsbail29
Hi, I'm one of the developers of Shareflow. Although we are flattered by the
comparisons to the amazing work Google is doing on Wave, it's true that we are
lacking some of the innovative features Wave provides (open protocol,
federation, Operational Transformation data sync).

That said Shareflow was conceived of without any knowledge that Google was
working on Wave and developed with limited resources on a tight timeline. When
we kicked off the project earlier this year, we discussed our ideal vision for
Shareflow which looked a lot like wave (open protocol, federation, pluggable
widget architecture, integration with external sites); however, as a small
team focused on becoming profitable, we decided to focus on getting a product
out there for people to use first.

The day Google Wave was announced there was a mix of excitement, tech envy and
some frustration in the office about Google releasing something similar to
what we had envisioned. Now we are looking forward to the possibilities that
Wave opens. A company of Google's size has the ability to push paradigm
shifting innovations and new standards. As people become used to new forms of
communication and collaboration I believe there will be more opportunity for
products like Shareflow. The fact that Google is making Wave an open system
means there will hopefully be an ecosystem of products communicating on this
emerging standard. As a company focused on innovating in personal and group
communication, we're following it closely.

We're continuing to build out Shareflow based on our users feedback. Thanks
for checking it out!

~~~
huherto
Great work, I am trying it.

It is very easy to sign up. But I cannot find the link to log in once you
already signed up.

Also the "Mail log in" is confusing. I was trying to use it to log in to
Shareflow.

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crux
Everybody's right in that it's a) not free, b) not an open protocol, and c)
not a huge quantum leap past message boards, but I gotta tell you: I was
interested in this anyway because I am desperate at this point. I am so sick
of email—a dozen individual messages being sent one at a time between one
person and another, out of multiple participants, somehow magically supposed
to be forming a single conversation; people sending individual copies of a
document, editing them, then replying all with a new version, et cetera. It's
maddening.

So, what do people do? Generally speaking, one's coworkers are simply not
going to sign up for a web app if it's not simple and obvious to them. Email
is easy. What tools DO people use like this, to create centralized, threaded
conversations, that don't require you to create a new account or pay $6 a
month for what (so often) amounts to a message board?

~~~
nwatson
In my ideal world a software (or any other) team would agree that any
decision, spec, design, procedure, etc., would all live in a wiki (e.g.
download and install <http://twiki.org>). It's structured but very flexible.

The team would use IM, e-mail, etc. to discuss these things, but anything of
substance would be kept in the wiki. The wiki would be interlinked with a
source code repository (e.g. subversion), a bug-tracking system, and a large
file-share (the share is only for storing common data sets, DVD/CD images,
documentation, 3rd party source, large data files/file-sets too large to store
in bug-tracking, support info, etc. ... BUT NOT DESIGN OR OTHER DOCS, except
maybe snapshots of Perl-pod or doxygen or javadoc or other auto-generated
documentation from source code). Everyone would only work on stuff in that
federated system ... no critical docs floating around in e-mail or file shares
-- everything's in the Wiki.

One would structure Wiki to track these things:

    
    
      * dev teams & their to-do lists & related stuff & diaries
    
      * research into systems with which software being
        developed must integrate
    
      * software procedures (how to build, continuously
        integrate, etc.) ... any new team member should 
        be able to consult this and know how to build,
        test, and deploy the product
    
      * products and product lines
    
      * releases
    
      * fun stuff, links to online videos, restaurant reviews,
        pictures from Friday afternoon margarita fest, etc.
    

I look forward to Google-Wave maturing ... they'll take the wiki concept to
the next level.

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endtime
Even the most expensive plan, $80/month, is limited to 200 "flows". So it's
not a viable email replacement in the way it seems like Wave might be.

<http://www.zenbe.com/shareflow/plans>

~~~
Zenbe
We've been using Shareflow internally for many months. think of Flows more as
folders in email rather than conversations. In our expeience of using
Shareflow internally for many months even 30 flows is a lot for a user. Hope
that helps.

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datums
Looks like it came before Google Wave [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpJEA-
dMhDA&feature=chann...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpJEA-
dMhDA&feature=channel)

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roamzero
Looks like a message board to me. A lot of these types of technologies seems
like variations on what's been accomplished with message boards and bbs's.

~~~
joez
I agree.

Where is the innovation? Packing a mashup with a forum thread isn't all that
amazing.

One day, an entrepreneur will come up with a business collaboration tool that
isn't based off a message board or a wiki.

~~~
derefr
> One day, an entrepreneur will come up with a business collaboration tool
> that isn't based off a message board or a wiki.

I don't think that's really possible, as you're likely defining "message
board" as "individual contributors make individual contributions over time"
and "wiki" as "individual contributors co-author centralized contributions."
There aren't really any other approaches to collaboration, online or off.

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Zenbe
We are following Wave protocol. Shareflow will implement it once it settles.

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pkulak
95% of what interests me about Google Wave is that it's an open protocol that
anyone can implement. So, I'm 5% interested in this.

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amolsarva
Shareflow and Wave address a common issue that everybody has to figure out:
what to use instead of email, that old-warhorse

There have to be better ways for teams to work together

Shareflow looks like it is one way!

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Tudisco
Nahh.. it is more like drop.io. But drop.io is better.

