

Google Wave's Phased Beta is Disappointing - amitu
http://fwd2tweet.com/hdRz/google-wave-phased-beta-is-fail/

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j_b_f
I know we've been over this a million times before, but the whole "FAIL" thing
really turns me off. I actually agree with the points but had to force myself
to click the link because I immediately assumed the OP was a linkbating troll.

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Tichy
I like #fail, it is short and poignant.

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wmf
Your complaint seems to be that few people are logged on at any one time, but
that's not necessary to use Wave. It isn't a very good IM system anyway, so
it's pointless to try to use it that way.

<http://danieltenner.com/posts/0012-google-wave.html>

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sp332
There are relatively few people who have logged in to Google Wave _ever_ ,
which is just dumb for a product that relies so heavily on network effects to
be attractive.

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wmf
Wave's invitation system is definitely flawed (I need invites for my whole
team, not just myself), but IMO amitu is criticizing Wave for the wrong
reason.

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stumm
I believe they tried to get around this problem by giving each person 10
invites. Some people sold them, other people invited their friend or team
which made it more useful.

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crux
Google Wave is not in beta. It's in public preview. Right now they're not
interested in being useful to you or any other user; they're still building
and designing the damn thing. The only reason they let you on is so they have
a bunch of new user activity to process.

The very fact that people are complaining that it's disappointing means that
Google is doing just fine. It might be disappointing to you, the eager early
adopter, but it's not stupid on their part. The very fact that you want to
have all your friends come use it (I do too) means that whenever Google _does_
decide to open the tap, they will have all the users they want.

The network effect is crucial for getting a new communications tool off the
ground. And as soon as Google wants to take advantage of the network effect,
they'll give you and me some more invitations and I assure you, we won't have
any problem finding folks to accept. In the meantime, we're still playing in
Google's sandbox.

EDIT: Incidentally, as further evidence of the fact that Google is leveraging
exactly as much of the network effect as they feel like leveraging: the thing
it does where anybody in your GMail contacts is automatically added to your
Google Wave contact list is fuckin' brilliant. It's a great way to encourage
use, by making sure that as many people as I'm likely to be interested in
using Wave with are directly accessible to be contacted, without my even
having to say, 'So, did you get a Google Wave invite? Let me know when you're
in and we'll chat!'

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pavs
Thanks for saying it the way it is. Wave is on "Preview", meaning its
definitely NOT beta or even Alpha. What "preview" basically means that "we are
building a system and we want live testers as we scale and add features", they
are not "bug fixing", they are "implementing features" on live users.

Wave users are viewing the changes and features added live, hence "preview".

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NikkiA
However, 'beta' _IS_ the traditional word for this situation, it's just that
Google (principally) has butchered and mutated the meaning of beta over the
last few years, to the point where people view 'beta' as meaning 'open to all,
but no guarantees' (except when it comes to video game testing, there the
traditional meaning of beta stands).

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wavesplash
The deeper message "invites should go out to social circles" is spot on.
Gmail's rollout policy worked because our network was already accessible (via
other email providers).

For something inherently social without a pre-seeded network like wave, it
only makes sense to roll it out to social clusters.

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seldo
Can you think of a better mechanism for seeding a finite number of slots to
social clusters than giving everybody X invites to share?

From what I hear, the people at the start of the chain have nearly all of
their friends on Wave, while the people at the edges (us) have only 10 or so
at the moment. As more invites go out the system will get more useful for us

Although I have many questions as to the actual utility of wave, I don't think
the invitation mechanism is really at fault.

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wmf
There was some confusion since Gmail invites take effect immediately but Wave
invites just put people on a waiting list; this turned out to be not as bad as
it sounds since apparently the waiting list is moving pretty fast. Even a few
days delay to get your team on Wave is disappointing some people, though.

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c3o
I agree that the invite process is all wrong, but for a different reason.
Google should be encouraging users to invite others for a practical purpose,
ie working on a project together. Having a specific purpose in mind when being
invited to Wave would greatly help people understand and evaluate the
usefulness for collaboration. Instead, people just clamor for invites to try
out the hyped new thing by Google rather than to fulfill any real need they
have, and then click around randomly, use Wave like a chat, and get annoyed
when "nobody's online". They're setting people up for disillusionment and
disappointment this way.

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jsz0
Thank you for removing the "FAIL" non-sense from the title. So sick of that
meme.

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rortian
I am definitely sick of the word 'meme'.

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yurisagalov
To be honest, I am not at all surprised at the frustration most people are
seeing with the Google Wave invite system. What I am surprised, is that so
many people did not seem to expect it.

What people are forgetting is that this system is a closed proprietary system,
unlike GMail. Yes, invites to GMail were scarce, and if I remember correctly
even sold for hundreds of dollars on ebay. The difference between GMail and
Google Wave (GWave? yes/no? ;) is that when you were invited to gmail, you
were invited to use a new "interface" of an existing and mature protocol -
email. You didn't have to wait to "show off" your gmail account to your
friends, you simply had to send them an email.

Google Wave requires mass adoption of something that is inherently closed
(unless they open this protocol to other companies) and so will suffer from a
slower adoption rate, and as a consequence, a lower utility rate, even if the
invite system ceases to exist at all.

To be honest, I'm not sure if this is an issue. Many of my friends who got
invites seem to think that Google Wave is going to revolutionize _chat_, but I
don't think this was ever the claim. It may yet revolutionize collaboration,
but in order to collaborate effectively you don't need to just sit there and
wait for people to log on -- start a wave, invite some friends, and watch it
evolve.

edit: to follow up on my 'non issue' comment. My point is that for Google Wave
to be useful, only those who wish to collaborate together will really need to
adopt it, not your entire google contact list. If a company signs up their
domain for google wave, you can be almost certain that they will make much
better use of it than I will with my group of friends on an individual level

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grhino
The beta is a closed proprietary system, but it won't always be that way.
Google created a proprietary implementation of an open protocol and has
created an open source client/server implementation.

Check out <http://www.waveprotocol.org/>

It's my understanding that you could implement your own wave server which
could then interoperate with Google's wave server.

The "Google Wave" web client that's in beta now may always be a proprietary
item, but it's my understanding that you could create your own wave client as
well.

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yurisagalov
Thanks for the link. This actually makes quite a bit of sense both in the way
google has done business in the past -- with Chrome and even the Google Chat
server, and of course from an adoption point of view.

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Tichy
I am always put off by the "limited supply" approach of Google. Disclaimer: I
did not get a Wave invite, maybe because I did not even apply, but still. So
they seem to think I am not cool enough for their product. Guess what, I don't
want to kneel down and beg for an invite. I'll look for other stuff to do
instead.

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dandelany
Agh, this is such a shortsighted opinion. Guess what: it's not done yet.
That's what beta means. When it's done, you can have it for free. Until then,
the system supports < demand, so you're gonna have to beg or know someone who
knows someone.

It's interesting to me that other company seems to have this problem: when a
new startup has a closed beta, people tend to be excited that the company is
innovating and testing a new system. When Google rolls out a beta, people get
angry because they don't get to play with it yet.

What's annoying to me is that some of the same people panning Wave for being
useless are also criticizing the slow invite process: You can't say cake
sucks, AND be pissed you can't have any yet! (note: this is not directed
specifically at your comment, it's just something I've noticed in general.)

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Tichy
Fair enough, I can see the beta angle. However, they have a history of doing
this stunt to make things look cool (think Orkut), so I just assume it is a
scheme. Also, giving people invites to spread does not make it very plausible
that they just want to keep the user numbers down.

For example, they gather valuable information from the invites: who is
connected to whom. I don't think these things are an accident, if Google does
it.

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zandorg
I got a cheap invite off eBay (about $4.50) so I could get stuck in with the
D&D side of things. So far, I'm still confused, having never played a D&D, but
slowly getting there.

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onewland
Agreed.

The #1 goal of a platform is adoption. Maybe I'm reading Google Wave wrong,
but it does seem to be a platform. So unless you're adjusting for scale, why
would you do anything at all to slow adoption? In fact, Twitter's failures to
increase capacity didn't seem to hurt it as much as not making it completely
open would have.

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stevejohnson
Because it's not really ready for public consumption. It's still pretty buggy.
To roll out now would make all those flaws public.

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Semiapies
Indeed - it's not a beta, it's a "preview". Really, it's a late alpha.

