
Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today - ajbatac
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-wave-what-might-email-l.html
======
pavel_lishin
> If both people are online at the same time, a wave acts just like an instant
> message -- except that you see each character as it is typed, just like in
> subethaedit.

Ah, back to the good ol' days of

    
    
      You are a fucking asshole^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmistaken

~~~
enomar
The article mentions that you can turn off instant update for these messages.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I didn't get that far, but I assumed that it surely would. Still, there will
be many people who will be unaware of this, at least long enough to make an
initial snafu.

~~~
DTrejo
There is an obvious "hide while typing" check box (At least in the current
version).

~~~
markessien
How did you get hold of it?

~~~
DTrejo
I saw the demo at google IO. Attendees have early access to develop.

------
staunch
I'm doubtful. Looks like something that a few people will think is really cool
and 99.9% of the population will ignore.

~~~
peregrine
Google goes for the long term approach and not the short win.

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seiji
O'Reilly just blew up my buzzword-o-meter with "Federated Wave Clouds" and "a
world in which messages no longer need to be sent from one place to another,
but could become a conversation in the cloud."

So instead of sending messages _to_ someone we just send it "in the cloud" and
our federated waves generate a response?

Maybe O'Reilly intentionally reinforces vague and confusing terminology in
order to publish more books explaining what should have been stated using
simple terms in the first place.

Let's give it a try: Google Wave adds structure and web functionality (think
embedable widgets) to conversations in a more meaningful and semantic way than
normal text-only threaded email and IM. A Wave server uses an XMPP extension
to allow peer-to-peer communications thereby removing reliance on sole
providers for communications infrastructure.

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khill
I realize its just a demo but that UI looks horribly crowded to me. Regardless
of how useful it is, I think staring at that all day would give me a headache
and send me back to my "old" email.

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dgallagher
My initial impression is that it looks like an online version of Outlook/OWA,
albeit with more/different features. It's very, very busy with stuff flying
all over the place.

They're hitting on a big problem though; centralizing online conversations,
regardless of medium, into a single location. Something like this can plug
right into your Facebook friends, or company address book, etc... Very neat
idea.

Too much marketing lingo though. Please, stop inventing words, like "waves"
and what-not; they rarely stick (Who still tells someone they're about to
"beam" money to them over PayPal? Who knows what a "lens" is on Squidoo?). I
can't even get my Mom to comprehend what "twittering" is yet, never mind a
wave. It's too confusing for many people.

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zyb09
For the people that watched the keynote: Kinda funny how they praised
JavaScript for an hour and latter, on the AppEngine note they tell us to write
Java and let them handle all the conversion to filthy JavaScript :>

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zouhair
Yay, we reinvented Usenet, more cluttered though.

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DanielBMarkham
I've figured out what actually supports the internet: the cloud is actually a
large piece of hype that escaped sometime in 2001 and now is running its own
operating system and sending out press releases.

Seriously, that article was a little too breathless for me. I certainly hope
that it is really that cool because that would be awesome. But I've read a lot
of hyped articles over the last few years.

Is it too much to ask for a reviewer of a new product to be on a bit of a
critical hat? After all, this is a large company coming up with something new
that _they are going to own_. We've got Google Gears, HTML 5, Google Maps,
Google Mashups, etc. Would you like Google fries with your Google shake?

It looks great. I hope it is great. I worry about things like identity
management and levels of friends with such tools -- not sure if they've solved
that. I'm also not sure how other parties besides Google are supposed to own
the data, which might be important for some folks.

It's cool, no doubt. But it's not the Apollo moon landing. It's more like
Outlook on steroids.

~~~
maximilian
They are opening the protocol. <http://www.waveprotocol.org/>

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mat3
Silicon Valley Google Wave Discussion lunch tomorrow (5/31)

Come, Bring a Friend and let's discuss Google Wave over lunch.

Please use the following link: <http://www.socializr.com/event/976099347> to
RSVP.

Feel free to forward to anyone who might be interested.

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chanux
Not ready to get excited, right now.

~~~
thorax
Did you watch the video? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ>

I found it pretty exciting, at least.

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jodrellblank
_suggests that the amount and quality of participation goes up radically when
comments can be interleaved at a paragraph level._

The way emails grow with repeated and old information and forwards is
something I really dislike about email and like the sound of wave.

However, unfortunately wave is destined to fail. Exchange 2010 with Outlook
2010 claims: "Improve user productivity with the ultimate inbox experience." -
[http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/apr09/04-15Exc...](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/apr09/04-15Exchange2010PR.mspx)

Since Exchange/Outlook will have "the ultimate" inbox experience, Google Wave
can neither equal it nor improve upon it.

~~~
blogimus
Oh, I'm sure these products, just like laundry soap , in the superlative war
of marketing (see link below), will come up with something to one-up "the
ultimate" inbox experience.

Why stop at the inbox? The inbox is so... limiting. Who wants to be stuck in a
box?. Maybe something like that.

Article: Detergent can be so much more
([http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982087....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982087.htm)
).

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joepestro
Thanks Google! This totally validates our collaborative browsing startup,
<http://www.browseology.com>

If you don't want to wait for Google Wave to see updates from everyone in real
time, check it out.

