

Geeks Try Google Wave, Have Mixed Feelings - yarapavan
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_wave_reactions.php

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jawngee
I thought the same thing, "meh", until I had an epiphany last night.

I really think this changes everything. People keep leaning on the document
aspects of it, but I tend to think of sites like reddit, digg, hn, even 4chan
and how, if applied, it changes the way web communication happens. Imagine a
realtime Reddit with living, breathing comment threads. Even the StackOverflow
model becomes something new with this.

Even more basic than that is how this, I believe, will replace email for even
casual users. I'm sure the rest of you have similar experiences where you get
involved in long email threads with friends, and how that can slow down, say,
planning something to do that night, or planning a trip or some kind of thing
that requires consensus and a bit of discussion. The flow of reply-all, wait,
reply-all goes away completely.

And, of course, the collaboration aspects of it are pretty awesome.

So I wasn't convinced until last night, and now I'm nearly as excited as when
I first saw the graphical web with Mosaic or sent my first email with a NeXT
box in college or dialed up my first BBS.

There is quite a bit of promise here.

~~~
TrevorJ
I don't completely disagree, but realtime is not a holy grail - after all, we
had chatrooms long before we had reddit, digg and the like.

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swombat
_It's slick to be sure. However, what I keep asking myself is this: what
problem does it solve?_

If it's not obvious to you what problem it solves, then you've spent too long
away from corporate environments with their massive, unwieldy threads of
emails flying about, full mailboxes, and other email issues.

The problem that Wave solves is blindingly obvious to anyone who uses email as
a primary tool to work with teams. Whether it's the right solution is another
question altogether, but the problem is definitely there.

~~~
axod
If that's the case I think they should narrow and focus. If it's a tool for
corporates to communicate, 'mailing lists 2.0?' then it'd be cool to go that
way.

Being marketed as "It can do _everything_!!! It's the new internet!", which
seems to be the current strategy, could pay off, but maybe not. Likely only
with geeks wanting to play with technology.

I'd be really surprised if it takes off with consumers quite yet.

~~~
sp332
They need to get buy-in from geeks first, otherwise no one will write programs
for it.

~~~
isamuel
This is probably true. But if the purpose of Wave is to be "Collaboration Tool
for Large Corporations to Share TPS Reports," isn't it doomed with most
hackers anyway? Who would want to write programs for that?

~~~
axod
...and in XML :/ eugh

------
Goronmon
I got my invite, but with no one I know also having an account, I don't really
have anything to do with it. So it will probably be ignored until I'm able to
toss out invites.

~~~
spydez
Invite some HN folks:

[http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ar8He-
EcPg54dDVvRjZp...](http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ar8He-
EcPg54dDVvRjZpaWZvWVJqOFAwTmZNY0twQkE&hl=en)

Or put your Wave address here so we can add you to a HN wave.

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Tichy
Maybe Google Wave will be to email what conference calls are for telephony.
Personally I never mustered the energy to figure out how to set up conference
calls. But some people (companies) use them, so they might have their place.

Though I have to say I remember the conference calls with 20 participants as
one of the more absurd excesses during the dot.com bubble.

------
elblanco
Wave is simply too new. Appropriate conventions, best practices and basic
netiquette haven't yet been communally agreed on.

Most of the other problems reviewers have identified appear to be almost
purely basic software issues (new or updated waves don't float to the top for
example, can't draft a response yet, etc.), things that Google could just
silently update tomorrow or next week.

In addition, we've only seen one Wave client. The protocol itself seems sound,
but alternate clients could easily solve many of the identified "problems".

The importance of Wave is and always has been the protocol. The client is just
an example or reference app.

For myself I'd love to use it to co-author papers and collaboratively write
technical specifications and design docs with my (across the continent)
colleague.

------
pkulak
90% of the problems that people seem to have it are with the real-time typing,
but Google will have "draft" mode built before it's out of testing. I'm not
sure it's fair to say that it's a dud because you can see while people type.
If Google's smart, they'll make draft mode the default.

------
tibbon
Err yea, but didn't most people have mixed feelings on the iPod, gmail,
Twitter, etc too?

As a geek, I'm mainly interested in the API, not myself using it immediately.
That will come around surely, but the API is what I really want to sink my
teeth into.

