Ahhhh, Google ruling the world. It’s so evident here in the SF Bay Area.

It may suck, but I won’t be using it.

Sorry but this product will change completely or die completely. It is truly abysmal and pointless.

iWont

i wont use google wave. noone will use google wave. it is a glorified chatroom that lets you embed vids. there is no wow factor. its overhyped by google fanboys. non-fanboys can see past the google logo and see theres nothing enticing about it. NOTHING.

you keep bringing up its revolutarionary for collaboration? yea, just like google sites was revolutionary. oh wait, noone uses that either after a few years.

but zomg, it lets you resize text? revolutarionary!!!!

me and my friends are actually using it as an IM replacement, nice to see the possibilities, but I agree, lots of bugs, you have to be patient with it

If you were looking for a magic new widget – Wave is not it. If you are looking for a better way to collaborate, I think this has great uses. It is not everything for everybody. Thanks for the +/- on WAve just the same. I appreciate the issues better now and look forward to getting more out of WAve.

Don’t forget that Wave is still in “preview”. I am loving it.

You have wrote that one can’t get updates (Disadvantages #4) . True. But I have discovered a robot to overcome this problem : http://blog.arpitnext.com/2009/11/use-google-wave-from-gtalk-to-get-updates.html

Just admit it and be done, it sucks big time. We will have to wait for someone else to launch this technology, Google team is clueless.

Oops – it should be “written” :(

Google Wave is great for brainstorming sessions.

Wave won’t kill email, but it is here to stay.

I’m a Google fanboy, but frankly I dislike Wave. It tries to do everything without being good at anything. Putting everything together in one complex app makes things easily “bloated.” While you can get the same effect having several small apps open in tabs. The “working together on a doc” already exists. The “having a central place for all your info” exists also. Even the “real time messaging” does. Wave isn’t anything new, it’s just the next attempt at mashing up everything.

it’s and early tech preview the finished product might not even look like that, it’s and ambitious effort so i’ll for at least for the beta stage to to judge the damn thing, i still have high hopes.

Hi,

don’t forget it’s BETA! I think Google Wave have many nice futures but everybody must find his own way to use it…

Goole Wave is maybe the next generation of Web… Not Wave the plattform but the technology what google use for the Wave plattform…

rollbacks are good on wave, you can see all the history of the wave…I dont know why he says the opposite.
Wave is beta, needs to improve a lot.

it sucks bad. I mean it doesn’t even do copy & paste!!

Lot’s of bugs, but the lack of notification a wave has been updated is a real pain. Since I only have a few friends using it, I don’t need it open all the time, but I never know when someone is on to collaborate with.

A long way to go, and has potential. Maybe its really an experimental platform for something else?

I described to those who I invited to participate in the testing of Google Wave this way: “More private and more topic-driven than Facebook.”

For me, personally, Google Wave is great for specific topics — for instance, I set up a Wave regarding a recent article about some historian claiming that the Shroud of Turin is real, and my friends and I have been having fun chatting back and forth and using very “colorful” language in our criticism, which I kind of refrain from using on Facebook, being self-conscious that other “strangers/friends” might read it.

As some one who is outside the computer industry, I can see the enormous potential. TechCrunch readers probably need no prodding to accept invitations should they come their way. But, I recommend people to seek out invites and try it.

To those who have not tried, no amount of descriptions and videos could do justice to actually trying it out. It’s like showing somebody a gameplay video of a yet-to-be-released video game — yeah, you get excited, or uninterested, but when you have the video game in front of you, everything feels different.

Google is upping the invite numbers to those of us who have been testing. People I invited also just got 8 invites themselves as well.

We’re actually using it as a replacement for Fogbugz, and for ad-hoc things like meeting agendas, and for any document/plan/etc that we need to collaborate on. It works relatively well for both of those tasks. Sure, it’s not polished yet, but it’s already clearly useful.

If we give the Wave team some time, I assume, that they will be able to incorporate the usual Google “coolness” into the product.

I would love to see that.

er…limited public beta ??

i think its fair expect some problems. don’t over do it.

@Yano – agree with you.

I feel that this analysis is a bit pre-mature as Google Wave isn’t a complete product yet. One thing is for sure, Google Wave will have a lot of users including me!

I won’t be using it if it continues to be slow as hell (i.e. iGoogle). Way more distracting than email and chat! Google needs to do some serious re-thinking as there are many good things in it still.

google wave is a bad idea, and will fail completly despite desperate fanboism like of that of the author of this piece.

the information gigoloogle wants to be THE hub of all information flow on the web, and everybody is cheerleading! this is to stupid and dangerous!

Chrome OSucker is yet another piece in the agenda of the vacuum cleaner cloud of google! Their arrogance is unmatched, even by Microsoft.

and yet people are still blind!

sad

I see Google wave being an innovation for the sake of innovation. It doesn’t solve any particular problem. The technology behind it is interesting though but it would need some more creative application.

the problem with wave is that people want to try it, so they start one because they want to, not because they need to.

it’s like painting. if painting was new, people would be all over it, buying blank canvasses, throwing paint all over it. not that anything good comes out of it, but hey: at least they can say they paint.

that’s how it is with wave right now. too many people throwing paint, not enough that actually paint a picture.

I am guilty of the above as well, desperately wanting to try this new thing, but then I put it aside as a failed experiment.
UNTIL I suddenly NEEDED to make a wave:
I was emailing back and forth with a friend about jailbreaking and the essential cydia apps, tips about tethering, push notifications, and general customization.
at a certain point we were starting to lose overview in the string of emails, so we started copying the old parts with it, until we decided to move it all to a wave.
now the wave has turned into a clear guide about JB-ing and we have invited a bunch of friends to help us build the database of tips, tricks and essentials.

what I’m trying to say is: don’t try to make a wave, but use a wave when you need to.

eric.

PS: there is a pretty nifty wave notifier for the mac menu bar out there.

“It is a completely new experience to actually see your friends, colleagues and contacts type in and change content in real time. No other application apart from a few client-side chat tools currently offers such a service via a web interface.”

That’s incorrect, it’s not exactly new to the web, as both Adobe’s Buzzword, ConnectNow both have this feature. Flash applications in general have done this kind of connectivity for years now, but nothing in an application as mainstream as Google Wave. With ConnectNow you can even share your screen, and even share files, something that is not possible in Google Wave. Plus Adobe gives developers access to all the components used in ConnectNow to build their own multiuser applications, but Adobe doesn’t quite have the same PR as Google does.

There are two crushing disadvantages you haven’t mentioned:

1. Google Wave is not open source. I can’t download the source code and manage my own server. That’s a show-stopper – I can build an open source email server, IRC server, open source Jabber server, or any one of a dozen other communications and messaging protocols. There are even open source Twitter equivalents! I can’t contribute to the project, join the “Google Wave” project.

2. Google hosts the data in “the cloud”. I am dependent on Google for privacy, security, regulatory compliance, etc. Again, that’s a show stopper.

PS 2: like mentioned in the article: there should be a way how to export a finished wave as a webpage. there will be a lot of Wiki’s created this way.

also: the ability to make a wave public viewable, but only editable by a select few.

eric.

Curious.

I just want it to hurry up and either replace gmail or talk, because right now, I have no reason to sign on to it.

i agree that there’s a little too much hype about wave but it seems like it’s the the new cool thing to leave a comment saying “wave sucks, wave no one will use it” …it’s still in preview! remember when people had doubts about facebook and twitter?

i initially got 8 invites, enough (for now) to give out to people i want to work on things with. it’s been really useful for brainstorming and keeping notes with a small group. i agree that it won’t totally replace email but will cannibalize it to some degree (think looooong email threads, forwarding messages to various people, etc.). I just got another 8 invites, seems like they are slowly but steadily opening it up to more users.

Google builds their products according to user feedback… revealing them before they’re ready, along with useful feedback from the community i guess they also get alot of annoying people complaining.

Good article. I’m a fan, have been using it on some projects, and have a nearly identical pro/con list in my head.

I believe that even if Google fails on the UI, someone else will deliver a good experience atop the fundamental protocols and the mechanism will emerge as significant.

One thing I think you should clarify, however, is that you said “don’t share confidential information in waves” and explained why. Your reasons were valid, but are largely mitigated by “Private Reply” which, I suspect, is there for exactly this reason.

I’m not sure that it sucks. It might be even worse: Very few people really need it and will invest time to build up a network of their collegues/friends. Everyone has to become a Google member, set this up and so on. Only few will care.

Wave could be an answer to a question nobody asked.

While I think your post is well written and many of the criticisms hold water, I don’t think that it is the right time for such a lengthy review of Google Wave. It has only really been available for a few months, there are still a lot of bugs to iron out. It is still very much in preview mode.

You will fail miserably, you are using a collaboration tool in the place of a bug tracking tool, and aside from that it still proves the concept that Google Wave is a tool for no clear purpose.

a bit biased, eh?

Headline = Google Wave (pre-beta) Preview is a (pre-Beta) Preview.

No kidding. Although I should not characterise the whole of this post as stating the obvious because there’s some great stuff here about how Wave will evolve.

Personally, I see Wave as the Twitter killer. Open. Distributed. Real-time (with a dash of PubSubHubBub).

And anything like this that is completely open (ie, with no strings attached back to the mothership) is OK by me. How can anyone build a conspiracy on the back of that?

less than or on par with writers on this site ;)

biased? wave is trending (or spaming) on twitter for month now!

It is useless and anoying piece of software, and yet only because it is google people keep praising it! That is the real bias here!

Google lost its focous! IT should go back to be a marketing corporation, and NOT try to dominate all areas of tech buss one by one!

HIstory repeats itself, first as a tragedy (microsoft) then later as a FARSE (google)

I agree. If you look for something, that you can use now and that is for free, Foswiki is your choice for the enterprise. If you can afford to pay something, choose Confluence wiki.

If you want to collaborate in real time: etherpad.com might be something for you.

You should apply for the job left vacant by Don Dodge, the famed ex-Microsoft evangelist.

Your intellectual and visceral prowess, not to mention loyalty, will no doubt impress the Microsoft leadership.

Oh. I missed that one. :-)

Actually it does copy and paste. But not as seamlessly as we would hope.

o sweet days when ICQ were the REVOLUTION in human communication and colaboration!

godgle wave = EPIC FAIL!

OMG.. so chrome is okay and won’t suck? And then all of a sudden Google Wave will suck? Err… I think those 2 apps should be swap.. The word “will suck” is more fitted with Google Chrome OS. Why?

Some people still has no clue what google wave is.

here’s the reason why google wave is one of the best: http://bit.ly/google-wave-why-should-you-use-it

“It’s one of the most “expected” BIG-BANG of Google this year and for year 2010 when its fully released. One of the reason why the Yahoo-Microsoft Tandem was once again stupefied and now scratching their heads.. “WOW GOOGLE BEAT US AGAIN?”"

Yes, I think you are right. And it is much easier to criticize than to build such an app. So lets give the Google Wave team some time to fix such bugs.

And then we will see, how that will turn out as an email killer or not.

Don’t forget, that they plan to let you install your own version. That will rock!

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I would also feel, that a free wiki like Foswiki or Confluence (commercial) or a bug tracker like Jira would be better for you.

Where are notifications for updates of the waves I follow?
you can use http://wave-xmpp.appspot.com/public/xmpplite.htm (when it’s not over quota…) to recieve gtalk notification or http://code.google.com/p/wave-email-notifications/ (not sure it’s working…)

No markup editing like in wikis
use this gadget to put html inside your wave : http://wave-ide.appspot.com/html.xml

i agree that for the moment it is more like a chat room with videos but i’m sure we will find some ways to use it eficiently !

As you said. The apps you named are not “that” widely spread yet either. I saw this live typing also in etherpad.com and in SubEthaEdit on the mac. But it will be new to a lot of users.

I partly agree. But the private reply is another pretty nasty concept in a wave.

Just imagine, you hold a conversation and somebody else makes fun of you: everybody can see it and comment it but you. You go on in the wave as if everything was fine. #nasty

How does that feel. I would rather see private replies not used.

A fair commentary on Google Wave. I tried to use it for a few days get got too tired of it already.

Ahh… I see the haters are first to comment here. One always recognizes them by their use of the word ‘fanboy’. I see it all the time for pretty much all companies. These guys just absolutely hate the company and anyone using a product made by the company is a ‘fanboy’.

Personally I quite like the technology. Though the Google webclient has HUGE problems.

Regarding the whole article though it smells a little bit like a big misunderstanding of what Wave is. Complaining about the web interface is like saying that email sucks because the Outlook sucks. And almost every single complaint I see here is about the web client.

Thus comments like with the readable URLs are a bit silly. The Wave will exist on multiple servers and will be viewed by multiple clients, both web based and desktop based. On does not complain about emails or IM’s lack of readable URL.

Same with Google accounts being required. It is required because you are running on their servers. Just like a google account is required for gmail. If you don’t want a google account then your company needs to set up their own Wave server and problem solved. And as Wave runs over XMPP/Jabber it is likely that your company is already half way there building up the Wave protocol infrastructure.

Bottom line is this. There will loads of different Wave servers and loads of different clients. Google’s web client really really sucks but you will have options. I have a Wave server running for my domain and for it I use a text based Wave client. So if the google hate group doesn’t want to use a google product then fine. Just use somebody elses Wave client or server. The protocol is fine. I still use email even though I grew to hate Qualcomm.

You are right. It is named “preview” not even beta. And actually I do hope, that the Google Wave team will pick up some of the criticism and will “iron out” these bugs.

I’m still learning how to use this first before I really give my opinion on it.. Remember when Twitter first started, nobody was interested..Now everybody has a Twitter account.. hit me up on Twitter…… @crownbeatz

no backward compatibility…

I just analyzed what is there now. And this is the web client. I will be happy to go on, when we all can have our own install versions.

For now I accept your points, but they are mere speculation as long as they are only promised and not there.

I would love to see your points come true. And then I will also rethink things like readable URLs. But actually I have used links to public waves quite often already. And for public waves you want to improve the URL-readability Google, won’t you.

By the way: I also thought, that the first results were rather emotional, than solid statements. :-)

For quite a few of the reasons you pointed out, GW isn’t by concept the email of the future and never will be. It is collaborative, and email is far more intimate (in spite of carrier spying, and spam). I won’t be trying GW, and don’t intend ever to use it. (One wonders how GW spam will appear?)

Thank you for your feedback. It’s great to see there’s such certainty in the world.

However, I’m afraid I must report the opposite: it’s working just fine. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that we don’t like to keep hundreds of bugs open.

etherpad.com was the first thing I thought of when I saw Google Wave. My company uses etherpad.com when collaboratively writing a document or brainstorming on strategy. The simple interface is really nice.

Google Wave seems to have more capabilities than etherpad, but will the complexity and extra noise turn us away? That’s what I’m interested in finding out.

Its more like Google Tsunami on the public waves.
I have 15 invites going spare, tweet me your email if you want one.

True.. It’s not here.. And I see that you can only comment on things that are here already. :)

But there will be other servers. I know that the ejabberd guys, that make the mostly used jabber server, are far along with making a Wave Federation Protocol server of their own. I also saw a web client that a solo developer created last month. So these things will come as soon as the final protocol is relased.

With the URL’s I usually pass on the ID of the post. And that is propably what will be done. That is you pass the “googlewave.com!w%252Be-cg7PN0A.1″ part and that will work in all clients to access the message.

Folks confuse Google Wave as a social network utility, whereby it is just a tool to conduct appropriated tasks.

Why is anyone disappointed?

Use GoogleWave, iWont !

Never.

Ever.

Ironically, Firefox (not Chrome where you would expect it) now has an add-on that notifies you of wave updates thanks to t 3rd party developer: http://thatsmith.com/2009/10/google-wave-add-on-for-firefox

So true.

All your data are belong to YOU !!

Don’t surrender to Google.

Google Wave = email + IM combined to create Information Overload 2.0.

Right, write more articles like this, analyze and people will write comments on what is wrong, what works, Google reads these for free (which they would otherwise have spend millions to get user feedback on), fixes problems, improves their product and makes even more billions dominating the Internet space.

“I won’t be trying GW, and don’t intend ever to use it” – it is always wise to never try new things and base your opinions solely on the experience of others. You will go far, my friend.

this is just a bad article, sorry.
1. You should not use software you don’t need
2. too many details, this is about changing some general rules and tools in the net, not about readable urls and all this bla.

Klaus,
WTF, you are talking about? You can criticize Wave and not like it but your comments are insane…

I just wish Google Wave was everywhere like the football/soccer forums I browse on matchday or the comments here in Techcrunch.
I wouldn’t have to (and I don’t) hang around with wearing down F5 for replies in every thread/article where I post a comment.

Good article, I think that your recommendations for enterprises adopting Wave are very constructive. I agree that Scobel’s early criticisms were poorly conceived. What I find on Wave is a very vibrant community that uses both its real-time capabilities and its collaborative mechanisms remarkably effectively. Yes, the features have a ways to go, but the preview app is just one of many that can use the protocol – including apps under development by heavies such as SAP. I to think that Wave represents the cornerstone of The Second Web, where collaboration is the default, conversations can transform into any number of kinds of content and effective groupings of users will create discrete addressable markets.

Been far, my friend, in 30 years

30 years with computers, that is

Windows,

I dont think you understand the implications and technology behind Wave. I hate Google to have ownership of all internet but that does not mean they are stupid.

In fact, just because they are as good as they are, I have a concerns.

It is our (users) duty to keep them innovating but keep them honest.

Prejudiced views like yours did great harm to the world community in old IBM days. We let run MSFT to with our money.

Now Google is a company continuing to innovate. Let us help them doing it and still keep them under tight leash.

I love google wave i was lucky enough to get an invite when more and more people use it then it will be able to take off

Still don’t understand the “why it is the best” part. Best for idiots maybe.

Wave is NOT special. It’s a bad CHAT ROOM. Nottin’ more.

=== popurls.com === popular today…

yeah! this story has entered the popular today section on popurls.com…

This is trash. Some valid points, but most of his comments suck.

This is a preview build and it will continue to improve over time. I want to save this post and then rub it in his face in a year or two. Just wait…

Martin, you still compare Wave with a wiki. You try to utilize it as an alternative for things, you do with your wiki now. When you start using it as an alternative for E-Mail, many of your critics above become obsulent. But that’s what Wave is about: it’s meant to be an alternative for E-Mail, not for a wiki.

Do you really wan’t a rss-feed for you E-Mails?
Do you really think about, who is owner of an E-Mail?
Do you really can copy seamlessly from an E-Mail to every wiki?
Do you really want to edit an E-Mail with markup-code?
Do you really trust your E-Mail with confidential information?

Wave is PRIMARILY communication, and SECONDARY collaboration.

right, google wave sucks but i’m not going to use it.
there is a limited ways human can interact with technology, wave is the case when human brain cant keep up too messy invention

Google fanboy… Ho sit down

Thanks for the reminder, Ballmer.

:%s/Google Wave/Spry Mosaic/g

Bingo. Bango. Bongo.

Is this guy mentally ok? First, the article is about “why google wave sucks”; then the article is fanboyism at its best.

Take your meds, kid.

good or bad, is very difficult to judge. For example – first cars were nothing more then piece of shit.. Everybody liked horses. Every time something new comes up, there is cry – it is ugly. Well, yeahh.. . Assuming you are using it in a traditional way. Love Google or hate, they are brilliant in rolling out something new. Will it be adopted or not – only history will judge. And, secondly – this product just came out and is not even beta. Maybe it is not wave? maybe it is you who are obsolete?

P.S. I am not a Googler. Just love new stuff. regardless the brand.

> Why can’t I invite everybody yet? Closed preview kills value

But it works great. Closed preview with limited invites, especially from Google, made peoples hunt for the invites just to be “part of the select few”

Well, if it works like chat in some way… if the participants doesn’t have focus (like in the collaboration case) it’ll fail with dump of noises and trash jokes killing the valuable talks in it.

Etherpad rules. I find it is significantly more useful than Google Wave, and it doesn’t need an invitation. You’ve got your writing panel, you’ve got your IM panel, have a ball. It’s easy to see who’s written what by the colors (there’s no similar way to differentiate when more than one person edits the same wavelet at once), it’s easy to chat at the same time, it’s just plain easy.

In fact, I would say that where the article says, “No other application apart from a few client-side chat tools currently offers such a service via a web interface.” it is just dead wrong.

Etherpad rules. Wave drools. (*)

(*) At the moment. I suppose it’s possible Wave could improve in the future. But it would take considerable improvement to be as useful in collaboration as I find Etherpad.

there’s nothing wrong in being a bit neutral

All this whining over a PREVIEW…

Google Wave is Gmail with some extensions in a new layout. Nice, but I cannot see why this is going to work.

Developers should consider this: we are overloaded with communication. Most of us do not need any more. I do not pick up the phone anymore if it’s not the company or a client and I don’t bother call back if there isn’t a voice mail. I only check e-mail once a day at most. I’m done with that. I am certainly not going to subscribe and participate to even more ‘on the fly’ services.

A report? A written document suits well. Discussing matters? Phone or e-mail suits well, including links and multimedia and all gadgets imaginable. Something is interesting and worth sharing? I’ll forward the thing. We need a public project webpage? We’ll start a blog. We need to issue updates in public? Twitter.

Google Wave is an example of how things can go way too far. It’s not going to be a hit and it certainly is not going to replace e-mail. Google Wave would eventually be a desktop with gadgets. Well, that’s around for several years now (i.e. Netvibes, Facebook) and its not gaining more momentum.

It sucks as in vacuum-cleaner, which is good.

Agreed abt the drawbacks of the preview, but knowing Google, they will probably sort it out before it comes out on Beta

Google Wave promises sound like Lotus Notes promises: the ultimate collaboration tool.

@marco

perhaps if you still want to live in the 90′s . but next year.. behold, you might be surprised you became the dumbest of all the dumb egg heads coz you don’t how to use wave

I like Google Wave, don’t get me wrong, but I must admit that to me, all it actually is is a glorified forum. Perhaps I’m in no position to talk: I don’t actually have a NEED for a huge collaboration tool. But with replies and little tools and robots and such, it’s just a forum. I once did a collaborated project. Do you know what we did? We took a word document and stored it on a server. Word’s commenting tool allowed people to make comments about something, inline, and changes would be highlighted in their color. That was a collaboration tool. Wave just feels like a giant, slow web forum with IRQ features built in.

After using it for writing a report with 3 other students, i m impressed by the gain in term of productivity.

Every one can see where we are at, one of us can correct mistakes while another one is developing a specific blips… etc.

I think it is important to develop a hierarchy inside the system to allow some users to move the structure while the others can only interact with individual parts.

I also hope they are going to seriously improve the reliability as mentioned in the article.

Add to that, the invites aren’t real time. I sent out all my 8 invites and still none got ‘em. There’s no one to wave with me :)

I love the way Google wave works, but I am more stunned to see this gadget at TED conference

Look at this news : the 6th sense technology. I sway you would never seen the gadget like this in your life

http://blogoware.blogspot.com

Check the first post of my blog. Comment if you find worth

While waiting for Google Wave to mature, you can use ThreadThat.com now for encrypted conversational threading. You need not worry about anything you write or upload ending up in the hands of a hacker in plain text. Two levels of security – Confidential and Secret. Use your existing email accounts. Nothing to download,

I’ll stick with Outlook ;) works fine, doesn’t distract me from getting actual work done

I am not sure if the company is arrogant but it keeps trying to replicate past success and shake the world from every angle but (not counting those applications acquired) failed miserable on most fronts except the search engine that keeping those smart and under-performing employees happily kicking (don’t take me wrong, it is the kind of leisurely job I like). Android? Yes I think it is a master stroke not heard of for a while. But wait a minute, I don’t think the mobile business model will change in the direction that Google hopes, and at last will be orphanaged.

Why does everyone keep complaining about the “invite thing? Google used invites for Gmail when it was in beta/pre beta, its just a way to test it without having too many people using it all at once. It isnt even pre-launching yet. Bugs are to be expected, and it should be more complex then etherpad, it’s the next step. If you don’t like it then fine, but all this “iWont! hurhurhur” bullshit is getting ridiculous. You realize the “i” part goes with apple right? Not Google? Or did you spend so much time being angry over something no one asked you to use that you forgot what you were mad about?

Thats a great article.
One more thing to add along with all the stuff you have written in the article.
Google Wave needs a google account to login but in the main hyperlinks of google webpage the wave link is missing. Like Orkut, Reader, Documents Wave is missing in the Google Home Page.

I can’t comment on the quality of GW as I’m having trouble drumming up co-workers who are the least bit interested in an invite.

To my eyes, It looks like Outlook express 5.1 copy.

Google has copied microsoft, just added some messaging features on a web interface and calling it as a wave…. Good Job Google….

[...] [Comic] ######## ######### YouTube – The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody ######## ######### Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway ######## ######### Mininova limits its activities to Content Distribution service at Mininova blog [...]

I just got my invite, and I am still trying to see what all can be done.

Scary to read that some PR and marketing makes users believe that a forum is now IM+Email.

Good luck in your forum next year, Diabl0.

The example “better” URL given is a clear violation of Google’s dynamic rewriting guidelines.

Where’d this guy come from again?

Thanks for this in depth analysis of wave. We worked internally in a small team with it and we feel the same pain and see similar upsides. We’ll see if Google puts enough resources behind this project to get it really out of the door.

I had it “work” for about 24 hours once. “work” means it would accept “ctrl+v” and do something (=crash).
Then it was turned off again, and the best work-around I found was to use the “link” tool.

It is a useless and annoying piece of software… sounds like twitter is also…?

I like Wave a lot, lot’s of potential but the biggest issue is that you can’t use it since too many people are not invited yet.
I followed a wave with ~200 other members:
The result was that my browser freezes because of all the synchronization work.

I was wondering why it’s not possible to add Youtube videos just buy using a Youtube URL. My quick and dirty solution is this generator which creates Google gadgets for each YouTube Video:
http://www.finalwebsites.com/googlewave/

With Google Wave SKY IS THE LIMIT

+1 for Etherpad. It focuses on one thing — collaborative text editing — and does it well. Compare to Wave which seems to a solution in search of a problem.

You can. Just post a youtube url and there will appear an icon next to it. Clicking on the icon will embed the video instead of making a link to it.

As some have pointed out Google Wave is currently in Beta. Usability will probably improve in time. Google constantly experiments with new innovations and some will fail and others will succeed. Wave may succeed, but only if people use it and find it useful. Many points raised are not really valid. Why should someone without a Google account be able to use Wave. This issue raised by the author is like asking Facebook to hook up with Orkut or vice versa. If you want to use Google services, you get a Google account, if you don’t or won’t you shouldn’t be able to. It’s a matter of free choice, tho of course some may feel obliged to create an account in order to be a part of the conversation. But that’s no different from being ‘forced’ to create or maintain a MSN Messenger account for those that are resilient to join Google so as to converse through Google Talk. I am effectively forced to use MSN Messenger because some colleagues refuse to get a GMail account. They may be Luddites in my opinion, but if I need to talk to them using an IM platform I have no choice.

As regards data and data privacy, Google’s privacy policy is no worse in fact probably better than other companies’ privacy policies. Few raise issues over Facebook’s dubious T&Cs. And while Google does target users with specific data based on data it holds on its users, there is no evidence to show it hands the data to a third party. Additionally, like all ISPs and other companies Google are obliged by law to aid authorities if served with injunctions or writs. Google has however tried to minimise the effect this may have on individuals in totalitarian countries. Unlike Yahoo, who willingly gave information to Chinese authorities which served to convict and jail two ‘dissidents’ in China, Google has placed its data storage outside of China. Thus even those creating a GMail account within China are safe from the prying eyes of the state to some degree since the data is store outside the mainland.

ALL ISPs in Britain have now been obliged to store a certain amount of data on its customers, under a pretext of preventing terrorism. Google’s retaining of data is obviously motivated by commercial interests, but all companies are motivated by profit.

Of course the final choice is left with the user. If one feels Google will hold TOO MUCH of your data, doesn’t provide useful tools, or is simply TOO BIG for your liking, then don’t use Google services.

You can continue to use Bing to search, fill your hard drive with documents and use postal services and the telephone by which to communicate and collaborate with each other.

Google users, “Welcome to the 21st century”. The rest of you can remain in the 20th century!

Hi Jon,

you’re right, is this a new feature?
Strange is that I get some decent traffic from Google for searches like “google wave youtube gadget”.

Anyway that will say that my generator page is not needed any more :(

Nobody likes open bugs. But there will be a point, where you cannot fix them all. Just see the list of bugs in Google Wave above. :-D

It’s innovative but adoption will be slow primarily due to the limited availability. I agree with Robert Scoble’s statement about IM and email! It’s unproductive at the moment and needs a killer app to showcase the protocol and usability!! If anyone wants a Wave invitation I have several available…

[...] Our internal wave published at TechCrunch: Why Google Wave sucks, and why you will use it anyway; http://j.mp/8vRVv7 [...]

Google Wave has a lot of potential even in the current state. It was risky to make it available to the world in the current state as there are still bugs, and some will cheerfully declare failure upon noticing the first glitch. Honestly, if you consider all current Google Wave features – live, threads, re-edits, multimedia, browser (easy access), api there is simply no other tool with that capability in the world. Please don’t compare it to chat, please don’t compare it to twitter or friendfeed. It’s a whole different thing. And not an easy one to implement! If you have the patience to dig deeper into the concept of hosting wave servers, open standards… you will clearly see that Google Wave is an entirely new thing.

So… please, stop announcing failures and let Google develop it a bit further (hopefully others will join along the way). I am yet another one to bet that this piece of software will eventually overcome most criticism out there.

The most useless bunch of crap since Vista. You are being convinced you need Google Wave, when in the long run, it does nothing but make your life more complicated.
But then again, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. When something like this comes along and they encourage you to watch an hour long youtube video about it so you will “understand” it, you should already know…

Thanks for these additional tips.

You are a moron. If there is 1 thing that pisses me off is people writing articles about things they have no real understanding of and then pretend to be an expert. For the love of anything you people still regard as holy in this day and age get it into your thick unmaliable skulls – google wave is NOT a product. It is NOT an application. It is NOT a service. It is not a new “google thing”. It is NOT an email alternative. It is a PROTOCOL. It is a standard created by google based on XMPP. Whatever you think of google wave you are wrong because you assumptions are based on what you see (because you are a consumer). You have no understanding of the actual technology which makes you an idiot as soon as you start talking about it. The fact that your badmouthing something on techcrunch that you have no understanding of is sad and the fact that it got published made me lose a lot of faith in techcrunch. The only thing that makes me happy is that google wave is going to be a major factor in the future internet and it’s going to happen regardless of what you think or say because it’s the TECHNOLOGY and not the concept demo that is the frontend you assume is google wave. Idiot.

#1: Completely and totally FALSE.

Google wave server is open source. You CAN download the source. You CAN run your own server. And you’ll eventually be able to federate your server with others including Google.

You might also be surprised to learn that Google wave is an extension built atop the Jabber protocol.

#2: If you took the time to investigate you might find Google’s data security infrastructure may be vastly superior to your own.

Only tinfoil hat types tend to not trust Google purely out of principle, for fear of misuse or spying.

So go read the Wave Gadget API docs and start writing an extension. It’s not hard. If you believe in open source then this is the way to get the features that you want. What you’re asking is nearly trivial to implement.

The Wave team is very busy working to improve the scalability, squash bugs and improve the APIs that developers will be using to add all these new features.

All he did was remove ancillary client side state from the wave URL. You do realize that anything after the hash mark (#) is not even sent to the server, right?

Seriously? Is that troll?

Backward compatibility to WHAT? It’s hard to pull that off when you build a completely new product and service that has never existed before.

May I remind this is a Preview version?

I’m currently working on a project where we have to agree on technical specifications. People in three countries are involved in this and we are currently using MS Groove to share the documents. I can see the Wave would have some immediate benefits for that project. Granted, a lot of it could also be done with Google Docs but Wave seems much smoother.

You got a point dude! that’s really nasty

Hey, I love google Wave.
I think it has a lot of potential and we shouldn’t forget, that it is still in a testing phase.
It is a complex tool and you have to learn how to use it.
But one can not always keep things ultra simple or it will just end up as Twitter2.
But hey, that’s just, like, my opinion, man.

I tried Google Wave once, weeks ago, and have never felt the slightest inclination to return. I think I’ve identified the problem as a) it’s mind-crushingly boring and b) a productivity killer.

Whether people like it or not, I’m giving out invites. Email at me if you want one.

aidriiyan@gmail.com

I have 20 invites to give away if people are interested, add me on twitter @timdl and DM me your email adress

It’s not a new thing. It’s the same as Adobe Connect sans the video. Nothing revolutionary about it.

“Successor to e-mail” – LOL

Google Wave does suck at the very moment for obvious reasons you listed, but I feel that the gadgets and robots are going to be the game changer.

http://www.wavenut.com

No. Actually it’s been there since for a month or two at least. :) Pretty sure they also showed it in the announcement video also.

People propably miss it because it’s not very obvious. It’s just that tiny little icon.

Collaboration and anonymous interactivity is only good for the thieving compiler and profiler of the results. Instead of security, identity and productivity to put food on the table with small business, Google is disseminating IP and Trade Secrets, naming it “innovation”and “collaboration”.

This is one reason why Microsoft spent so much time trying to make their software and systems secure, while maintaining backwards compatibility for hardware, which Google has not done. The other reason was all of the hacking attacks by programmers, some now working for free as open source programmers.

Google has become the only non contributor to integration, forcing “Google only” laws on many websites, knowing full well that people can not handle MS and Google at the same time, especially if they use Apple or Firefox.

They have become cheerleaders for Asian electronics manufacturers. They are now the blind pied pipers, leading us off of an economic cliff into the pit of poverty due to IP loss.

It’s too bad. It sounded like such a good idea.

It’s not even in beta. It’s a preview and the real point of Wave was the protocol (one which they’re still not ready to let us use). Google are likely releasing it the way they are so that they can improve both the protocol and the UI to fit the use cases people find for it.

Google Wave is complicated for people because they are using it despite having no real reason to do so. As a freelance web developer who’s had clients that don’t know how to put images into an email properly, Wave has been a great help (when Google is nice enough to send my client the invite I request). I can discuss various points of the design with the client, give them screenshots of the progress and they can comment and attach their own images (logo, annotated screenshot or inspirational image) easily without confusion as to why it showed in their email client but I didn’t receive it.

I’ve also used it to join in a live roleplay session (something that’ll work a lot better as Google improves the stability of the platform) and plan an event.

Wave isn’t a forum, or a replacement for email. Of all the current communications platforms on the net it is most like a Wiki but with the ability to limit the editors and viewers.

I really like this article. You came up with some disadvantages that I never thought of before.

Also, I didn’t realize how overwhelming google wave could be… wow!

I wrote a rather less informative post about google wave’s unique uses but it may be useful to some reading this post.

Great post!

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=106932

http://maketecheasier.com/google-wave-the-future-of-email/2009/10/02

Seriosly, with Twitter around, Wave doesn’t have a chance.

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway via techcrunch.com [...]

I’m still waiting for Google Wave to open up it’s door to more people, I can see that it’s clearly going to be a platform with a lot of potential, but until we have some more people on it, it’s going to slowly stagnate.

I don’t know about anyone else, but since I got my invite over a month ago I think I’ve been onto Wave no more than twice, not because it’s bad, although there are still some rough edges, but because I’m all alone on there.

I’m holding our for another year, then we’ll hopefully start to see Wave proving its worth.

Seriously, your complaint is with the public feed? First this won’t be anybodies ‘inbox’ and second, what non-tech user would even venture into it, let alone know how to filter for public waves?? Your complaint is completely disingenuous to say this is how a wave inbox would behave.

//NICE/TIE

I totally disagree with your point about Google Wave being complex to use and then using the public wave search as your ‘proof’ that Google Wave is complex. Most Google Wave users will only use Google Wave for personal waves with friends and colleagues, therefore the rate of new waves will be no where near the rate of waves in the public search. In fact users today who would be replacing email with Google Wave would receive less in their inbox because replies are grouped within the wave.

So what? It’s a web conference and collaboration tool. Like Adobe Connect which offers video conferencing on top of the other features. The only thing new about GW is that it’s web based and oh-so-cool by Google. This impresses Techcrunch, Scoble and the likes.

Do you think corporations which have a proven collaboration tool in place (like Adobe Connect) will swap it out for this toy? Others (i.e. private people) have no use for it.

This post and all the comments show that Wave is a big deal. Complaining about the UI now is like complaining about an amusement park where the rides aren’t all built yet, just the monorail to take you around.

Most important: Wave is about communication, and most of the venom in these comments is from people who don’t want to communicate. They only want to shout out their complaints and leave. If they don’t like Wave, that’s good, we don’t really want them inside anyway.

More here: http://bit.ly/59HOQD

I am hoping for Etherpad.com, that they will find their niche. The product is too good to die.

On the flipside, I sent them a mail 2 weeks ago. No answer yet. :-(

I like google, but wave sucks!!! the article sucks too.. fanboy… article packed in sheeps….

Quite frankly the product sucks. Google better nix the thing.. start from scratch before Microsoft does it.

Do these guys ever do any usability studies.. I mean the thing is so messy… one just wants to scream and run away…

As I wrote above: “If you criticize Google Wave, you should keep in mind that it is a “preview” now. It’s not a beta, and it’s not a final release. The Google Wave team has set out to create “email as it should be in 2010″.”

You could have a valid point here. Just as Steve Rubel said: “However, what I keep asking myself is this: what problem does it solve? In many ways it’s overly complex. In fact it’s too complex for the era of the Attention Crash where all of us, especially knowledge workers, are crying for simplicity.”

A rollback means, that you can revert changes with the click of a button. That is a basic principle from every wiki. Google Wave simply does not support it yet.

We’re finding Wave very useful for threaded conversations during brainstorming. It’s a great replacement for those instances when someone writes a long email, and you get people inserting their comments: “My replies in red.” “My replies to your replies in green” … etc.

Regarding getting notifications, I find the XMPP bot too intrusive — it sends an IM on every single edit, which is maddening during a live, active conversation with multiple users. However, the Google Wave Notifier (downloadable from SourceForge) is excellent. It works just like Gmail notifier — sits in the system tray and checks for updates every few minutes. Until I had that, Wave was essentially useless. With it, Wave is much more useful.

One thing I particularly hate about Wave is the real-time typing. I don’t see the benefit of that at all. People respond to what you’re typing before you finish your thought. That’s what people do in a real conversation too — they’re already thinking about how they’re going to respond, before you finish talking. But in face-to-face conversation, people generally wait until you’re done speaking before they start. Or, if they do interrupt you, you stop talking. All of that goes out the window with real-time typing.

Good phrase: “Wave could be an answer to a question nobody asked.”

But we could just as well not be ready to understand the question. Maybe Google is just ahead and we will be in need of Google Wave in the future.

Until that time I will keep on focusing on Foswiki and Confluence. :-)

It is only a matter of size. Do you know the feeling, when you have managed to get rid of all unread mail.

Now imagine, that your mails change places and updating occurs even more often. That’s gonna give a hard time to a lot of non-tech-savvy people.

I tried Google Wave and think it’s alright but for the mainstream audience I think it will be too overwhelming and take a long time for them to learn how to use the product even at a basic level. People are just so used to the normal email service which has been around for years now.

It will be interesting to see how the masses adopt Wave when it becomes a public beta. I expect a lot of people will sign up but use it very little or not at all, kind of like the average Twitter user.

I also think, that it would be no problem to “better” the URLs as described.

Thanks Mark for your explanation.

It is difficult not to confuse something with something else if it tries to be as much as Google Wave. :-)

[...] Wave. The definitely-maybe hit of 2010. If you’re confused about Wave and all it could offer, this video details it well. Enjoy the [...]

“No other application apart from a few client-side chat tools currently offers such a service [live typed chat] via a web interface”

Guess you haven’t used Etherpad (http://www.etherpad.com/) then?

Also Google Wave is not completely unique. Zenbe Shareflow (http://www.zenbe.com/shareflow) has a similar concept.

Hey, did you note that is a “preview” ?
That means is not fully ready to use. It is obvious it have errors. So please wait a bit

Survey says that 91% of the Google Wave users don get.
http://wblg319.blogspot.com/2009/11/97-of-users-just-dont-ge
t-google-wave.html

[...] brilliant about Google Wave. Unfortunately they didn’t stop there and make that work right. Read a guest post in TechCrunch by Martin Seibert for a great analysis on where they went wrong (they stuck this infinite strip inside an email [...]

… and Google says:
The same thing we do every night Pinky. Try to take over the world!

Google Wave is for fun. If you are thinking to implement your bussiness or your best projects, sincerely: You are in the oven with potaoes!

HAVE FUN!

Any article that contains the phrase “Today, you’ll want to keep using Skype or Jabber clients for chatting” is pretty well out of touch as neither has any appreciable market share in IM. (Looking at wikipedia it seems as though jabber has about 2 points in germany)

[...] Reading “Why Google Wave sucks” http://bit.ly/8CW8Yr odomlewis: RT @nancysiniard Healthcare Marketing: Think You Have SEO Figured Out? [...]

I disagree!

All (or if not, most) of the disadvantages that you mentioned can (and most likely will) be fixed. In fact, to be frank, all the disadvantages that you mentioned are invalid. Heck, do you realize that Google Wave is in beta? Do you know what beta is? Clearly not. Google it, before you write an article that is misleading!

And this is why people like you should not have access to beta releases:
Missing revisions with rollbacks <- its a beta!
No permanent hiding of replies yet <- its a beta!
Why can’t I invite everybody yet? Closed preview kills value <- its a beta

Must I go on?!?!

4 months on Wave.. replace email and IM? You Wish!
Replace Notes or Exchange.. perhaps!

General web netizens.. no…
Corporates (not businesses mind you)… yes…

another chit-chat, as is it wasn’t hard to keep up with all this social stuff already :)

but they ussually know what they do at google, we’ll see

another chit-chat, as if it wasn’t hard to keep up with all the social stuff already :)

but they usually know what they do at google, we’ll see

I agree on the Outlook express comment. google is starting to go down the microsoft path, monopolistic practices and stealing other people’s technology – like wave and like “google OS” which is just linux with a new badge slapped on

I have wave, as have a bunch of other people I know, and yet noone is using it

Is anyone actually doing anything useful with wave or is everyone just talking about it?

Is that Wave public? Will you publish it’s URL? sounds like a Wave I, too, need to join.

It seems that reports of Google Wave’s demise have been grossly exaggerated.

1) Google Wave is not just for IM or texting. If you want to chat, go to Twitter. If you want to text, use your cell phone. Google Wave is a tool for small groups of people who want to communicate and work on a project together, who may not be in the same office.

2) Google Wave is not a replacement for e-mail. E-mail is still the best method for one-to-one, or one-to-many communication. If you need to coordinate communication in a group, than Google Wave may be a way for you to avoid the e-mail mess of broken and failed forwarded messages.

3) Google Wave is not social networking. It is a waste of time if all you do is browse public waves. Find a specific topic that you are interested in, or take your surfboard out of the water.

4) Google Wave is not yet finished. The software is still in beta release. How can anyone form a definitive conclusion on a piece of prototype software? The most interesting features of Google Wave will be extensions that have yet to be written.

5) Google Wave is a vastly ambitious undertaking. Because it attempts to do so many things, it seems complicated. Driving a car can also be intimidating the first time. I don’t think it will require anything more than a minimum amount of training to participate in a Google wave. The administration of a Google Wave should be well within the capabilities of most bloggers, and not require network administrator level skills.

Google Wave is not dead. Long live Google Wave!

Useless if the people i want to talk to, my friends, don’t use it, mostly cause they don’t know about it also cause there are no invites even if they did.

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway (tags: googlewave) [...]

I am not insane! I just have memory! Do you remember in the 90s people used to freak out because Doktor Bill Gates would allegedly ‘spy’ on what was played on Dvdroms?

Today people go hysterical about Google which is thousend times more agressive on the amount of information the control from not only all users but from all the web!

This BEAST should not be left unchecked! I use google products (some of them) but I praised the arrive of Bing! I hope it grows FAST. 40% market share it would be ideal – to make benefits to everyone!

So it probably has its flaws at present but it’ll only get better. Who knows, in the future, this might be very useful.

thank goodness you came up with those more readable urls. I would have just let people come up with their own names for their waves, but all those dashes are really cool too

I have a Wave account and a Wave developer account and so far….I just can’t get into it. It feels like a threaded chat window that I can save to my inbox.

I agree that it “could and probably will” become very popular as it evolves, but right now, it’s pure garbage and not worth my time.

Only time will tell with this one, but I don’t see it EVER replacing email.

I got an invite to Google Wave, and within five minutes I knew I’d never use it ever again.

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway (tags: google business article interesting articles learning collaboration techcrunch enterprise2.0 googlewave) Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

until waves can have followers (view only) and administrators (view and edit), I am not too snappy on making my waves public. I don’t want people that I don’t know editing my wave with stuff I possibly don’t agree with.

You are so correct!

[...] I read “Why Google Wave Sucks, and Why You Will Use It Anyway”, I thought now there’s my favorite word presented with a twist. The write up makes a good [...]

I am… I’ve used it to collaborate on a few whitepapers with my friends. And although it may look a little bit like Outlook Express, it’s really nothing like it.

And the invites seem instant for me… I *just* sent one to my sister, and she got it about 10 minutes later… that’s about normal for a preview release.

It’s really nice for collaboration on documents, actually, because not only can you edit a document at the same time with another person (no merge conflicts!) you can also start a discussion right in the middle of the text, and then delete it when consensus has been reached.

No one is forcing you to use Google’s products. However, the many rumors about Google taking people’s data and selling it, etc. are likely not true. Google makes a lot of money off of advertisements, and besides a few other small things, they’re fine!

And even though I may hate Microsoft, I would give them my data.

If you’re really that worried about it, use GnuPG…

Agreed… Wave does stuff that isn’t easy or not possible on any other platform. Document editing is amazing.

It isn’t a forum, nor IM, nor E-Mail. It’s an entirely new form of communication, that’s open (as in Wiki and as in open-source), real-time, and free (beer!).

Well, Jabber is pretty popular here, as is Skype. Most teenagers still use MSN/WLM, but that’s mostly because they don’t know about anything else. Most of their internet time is spent on Facebook, WLM, and YouTube. They tend to use whatever everyone else is using, too, so for something to really penetrate that market it either has to be completely new and cool, or have a lot of people know about it.

Just look at Firefox, and how long it took to really catch on… now nearly everyone I know has heard of it, and most use it. There is always a possibility, it’s just difficult.

Because Wave is a new concept, I think it will catch on. It’s also exciting for developers, because it does a lot E-Mail can’t do, and a lot IM can’t do, and a lot of stuff that is just plain new and cool.

Sorry, I tend to rant on and on when I hear people who actually haven’t had a chance to use something in a good way. Use Wave for something it’s good at, don’t try to use it for things that E-Mail/IM/Forums/whatever already do well.

Wave is an open technology, there’s nothing saying that you have to use Google’s servers. You can still communicate with people on other servers too. It’s completely distributed, like Jabber and E-Mail are in that sense.

It doesn’t really matter who provides it to you. Use whatever you feel comfortable with.

At the moment, Google’s client is the only one worth using, but I’m sure more will come in the future.

All I have to say:

ROFL.

Shut up, unless you actually want to say something helpful. I’m okay with criticism, as long as you actually tell them what’s wrong (CONSTRUCTIVE criticism)… being a fanboy isn’t really a bad thing either, as long as you’re not a big troll about it.

Wave solves the timezone problem. It works really well if you have a small distributed team working across timezones where their working partially days overlap.

When everyone is online they can communicate fast (IM style). When some folks are offline (asleep!) it works in a slower (email like) mode. ( all the time collaborating wiki style on the same document)

The beauty of wave is that the switch from synchonous
to asynchronous is seemless.

There is a lot wrong with it at present, but it is a preview, and a load of invites went out last week, so I don’t expect a shortage for a while.

[...] ditjes en datje (6) 28 11 2009 Google wave : een handleiding en verschillende redenen waarom het niets zal worden. [...]

The information Gigoloogle re-invented the CHAT ROOM! omg, that ‘genious’

LOL

Please TC & Co. stop this Google/ Twitter hype : any “0 value” project Google does it’s gold, any insignificant Twitter related fact it’s a scoop

Google Wave sucks IT’S OFFICIAL . I just counted the negative vs positive comments…like 100:1 .

It’s also official that Google has the YAHOO Syndrome : we try to do anything to be everywhere….we miserably fail…until death.

About Twitter : the hype it’s over, visitor growth is flat … the fall is coming soon.

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway (tags: google googlewave techcrunch article business google-wave collaboration wave) [...]

Exactly, you have hit the bull’s eye… I have no people to wave with.. What shall I do with that?

I created a group chat based collaboration tool for business that ties security, monitoring and real time chat and file sharing that I call numeroom.com over the last two years. I launched it into a closed beta 2 months ago before running out of funding (bootstrapped entirely). It does now all the stuff Google Wave can’t do and a lot more. Take a look at some of the screen casts of the various features on the youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/apriorityllc

I am looking for serious parties looking to provide angel funding, the site could be back on in production in a week.

Regards,

David

I also wrote remarks of what is not well designed in google wave yet, and what further innovations could finally make the start of a whole new internet experience, but this would require to find developers to work on it : http://spoirier.lautre.net/beyond-google-wave

@Marco

Hopefully you’re not peeing your pants now – on the way to 2k10… GLHF

why in the world does your mind go to a forum? and an IM+Email? LOL… , you need some serious help du-de

Martin,

Perhaps I am missing the connection between your title and the post you actually wrote. You cite a litany of reasons why Wave sucks (at this stage) but truly few why people will use it.

My particular bent on this one is that while I believe that messaging needs to evolve (and will evolve) from a PLATFORM perspective to better support new services that combine real-time and asynchronous communications, can orchestrate handoffs between man-to-man and man-to-machine, and can support both richer presentation methods and sophisticated payload ‘handling’ logic, it’s hardly clear where Wave fits in this equation.

Is it best thought of as a foundational platform that sucks as a product (and thus judged on DEVELOPER uptake of the platform) or a standalone product that has legs (and thus judged by use early adopter consumer/enterprise utility)?

Arguably, the best that Google can do in this regard is to eat their own dog food, and build a Wave service that is a composite of all of the native Google services (Maps, YouTube, News, Gmail, Search, etc.); and then provide tools for developers to extend this environment, something that I blogged about in:

Messages, Mobility and the Cloud
http://bit.ly/6LVq7b

Check it out if interested.

Mark

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway [...]

[...] Nam (lược dịch từ TechCrunch). VN:F [1.7.7_1013]please wait…Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)VN:F [1.7.7_1013]Rating: 0 (from 0 [...]

Hard to say how much it sucks until more people start to get invited and try it out. Having to create another email account to use does kinda suck, would be good if you could link corporate email addresses to it.

[...] Google Wave was supposed to be the next big thing but we may have all spoken a bit too soon. (Tech Crunch) [...]

I personally use wave, and have invited my entire family/extended family. I have close to 100 aunt, uncles, and cousins. People get married, people have kids, people plan vacations for certain weeks and invite whoever can come. People have parties, get-togethers, and meetings. We collaborate on what needs done, have lists, and need answers on dates/times/who is bringing what.

Wave is going to make this SO much easier. You all know by the release, they are going to have it integrated with all the other google services. You all know they are going to take the time to make it easier to use.

The other beauty of it is, if you don’t like it…don’t use it. Don’t sit here and tell people it won’t be useful for them. In it’s preview state, it has already made my life easier.

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway [...]

This is a good navision information

Jabber is the basis for Google Talk/Chat…

At least someone has common sense here

Guys,

Instead of quibbling about some hype-seeking mickey mouse toy which in all probabilities end up complicating your life which is filled with pointless “tools” ,why don’t we focus and think about things which carry weight and are deeper. No company or software can help us communicate better – we only can. When was the last you had an intelligent, sensitive and a genuine conversation with somebody ? Think about it and lets work on the content to communicate rather than the tools.

Thanks

Goggle Mail is still incomplete, but the idea isn’t bad. Gadgets will be the strength of this product and many are still missing.
Imagine that you need to describe or discuss a process in the workflow in your company and that you have a collaborative gadget that would compare to Lovely Charts or Omnigraffle to draw the graphic using drag and drop. Which one would you rather use, e-mails back and forth (not knowing if the people involved have the necessary software installed) or an online tool that would share the information real time using commented graphs?

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway  [...]

@eric
One of the few rational comments i have seen this list of comments.. Thanks for that comment

flame bait article receives flame-bait article responses. Surprise!!!!

google wave is unstable and requires a volume of people to be effective. that said, it’s in Alpha.

if you can’t wrap your head around Google Wave, you are missing the next step in communication. has anyone watched the history of Exchange? it’s been moving towards this for over a decade but still couldn’t provide this integration. Single Point storage, messenger, Sharepoint, AD; all of these technologies were towards building a unified messaging and collaboration platform. will Wave require training? yes, it’s new and people are inherently fearful of everything, change included.

anyway, it’s an opinion piece and the opinion isn’t one i agree with.

The point is it’s an open protocol for communication & collaboration.
Corporations will switch if they realise they can communicate with other corporations using it & still keep their own servers & specialist client software.
From what I have seen, from using it, wave feels much more flexible than email & is a better solution for casual communication with friends.
– imma
(a fan of many things google)

There is a Google Wave notification plugin for Firefox:
http://tnerd.com/2009/10/14/google-wave-notification-plugin-for-firefox-alerts-in-browser-for-new-wavelets/

Things *are* looking up for the moleman army in the unlimited system of underground tunnels, then :-)

Alex may have ranted a bit there, but you’ve just not been paying attention :-P

To everyone who things this is a solution in search of a problem:

There was once another invention of mankind which practically _defined_ the whole “solution searching for a problem” domain. It was invented in 1960.

It’s called a “laser”, and had absolutely no uses what-so-ever back then. Today, they’re effin’ everywhere; without them, you wouldn’t have:

* laser printers
* CDs or DVDs
* Megabit-per-second Internet service in the home
* multi-terabit-per-second SONET links used to ferry all that traffic from your cable, FiOS, and DSL modems,
* LASIK surgery,
* laser light shows in concerts,
* ANY product depending on laser interferometry (e.g., micro-fracture analysis used to ensure airplane wings, you know, stay attached to the plane)
* and on, and on, and on.

Now, I’m not a Wave fan myself, for I have no immediate use for it. But, please, let’s can the “solution to a question nobody has asked” bullshit, and rephrase it as something a bit more relevant: “a solution to a question YOU’VE not asked.”

A very Germanic post

I think, as far as I remember, way back in 98/99 we could use ICQ chat with all these features – that is see actually live typing, rewind and get a print of how the concersation evolved, invite only those I want to a particular conversation, share files etc etc … the most exciting was the viewing of someone typing live … however the excitement could not sustain itself :/ ….

If it is supposed to replace email then its lost – email can be done from any provider to another, telephony also … whiteboards have been there as well as wikis … net is too saturated for any further gimmicks, more than half of the net pop does not even use RSS or Twitter but plain simple email and bbs … this is fact :)

And in any case there is strong antipathy to Google now turning into another MS, I also do not want my data to be datamined …

Like most of Google’s products, it’s extremely overhyped but underused. Some IT departments are already blocking it (Websense, etc) as “Chat/Instant Messaging;Web Applications” – I can understand that because in addition to “Who owns the Wave?” the question of “Who owns WHAT is ON the wave” is a legitimate one.
Same with Google Voice. The bug kerfuffle about Google Voice not being allowed on the iPhone is something that really only affects a small number of users. From the FCC: “1.419 million users, only 570,000 of whom actually use it everyday.”

Dang, the way you all are hating on it, it must really be a watershed. Don’t be jealous. Move along.

As a technical user rather than developer, I have lost total faith in the new 2.0 you guys are talking about while the likes of Twitter get $250m in funding and have not made a cent of revenue. Twitter is junkware and unless there is a shakedown soon, there is no knowing if any of the ‘share’ stuff is worth a bean to the regular office worker. As for comments on wanting to run your own wave server. My whole life at work is spent trying get everything hosted so I don’t have to back up or worry about versioning. Again you techies missing the average user perspective. Lastly. Shout out for Evernote.com. Great app. Really works and this has changed my office (20 people) completely.

It will be a great collaboration tool for video creators and many other talented individuals around the world. We think that it’s just in time for the better communication and development of films and videos. Great job Google team!

hm…. Looks exactly like google docs to me..?

I dont know what to wave about and dont have many friends to wave with. because just two of my friend got wave invitation and activate their google wave account.

I’m reminded of the time a friend of mine, the founder of a small software company (now defunct) said, “There’s no point in developing a Windows version of our software, Windows is just a fad!”

I’m also put in mind of the time Westinghouse rejected a new invention, because it was an interesting novelty, but would never have a serious application, the TELEPHONE!

[...] guías con los posibles usos de este servicio. Hay quien ha preparado recomendaciones sobre todo lo que no funciona en Google Wave pero deberíamos aprender. Los más atrevidos se lanzaron, el día de su estreno, a especular como [...]

This is not the tool for brainstorming or any value added discussions.

Google will be keeping close tabs on your information and selling this information to advertisers.

Be careful with the type of information you share on Wave!

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway – TechCrunchNevertheless, this post outlines how you’ll probably use Google Wave in the future and also gives you advice on how to implement it in your company or your team of coworkers. It also reveals some big usability problems in the current version. Those [...]

I see it more as a collaboration software than an email. It is not email of the future.

[...] in a professional context. But as many communications and tech professionals (like this guy <http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/> ) have pointed out, the kinks need to be worked out or it won’t [...]

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway – Google Wave is a hot topic at the moment. The ambitious group collaboration and micro-messaging platform started rolling out in beta via an initial batch of 100,000 invitations two months ago. Many people still want invitations. Among those who’ve tried it, some criticize it, some praise it. For now it has a lot of usability problems that are described below. Yes, you should look at Google Wave. But there is no need to desperately long for an invitation yet. [...]

[...] guías con los posibles usos de este servicio. Hay quien ha preparado recomendaciones sobre todo lo que no funciona en Google Wave pero deberíamos aprender. Los más atrevidos se lanzaron, el día de su estreno, a especular como [...]

[...] Google has released Wave as a way of training the market for the future functionality of Gmail. While Wave is discussed as [...]

At present I believe no one is getting BEST out of it..but one day I’m sure that this would become the BEST!!! Google always ROCKS!!!

[...] brilliant about Google Wave. Unfortunately they didn’t stop there and make that work right. Read a guest post in TechCrunch by Martin Seibert for a great analysis on where they went wrong (they stuck this infinite strip inside an email [...]

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway [...]

Thought wave was going to be like facebook or other social networking. Wrong. Nothing fun about wave.

My invites (to give) just jumped from 8 to 25 and I can’t give them away….. nobody wants them. After a little self-evaluation, I asked the wife why she didn’t want wave; she said “It looks boring”.

She’s right.

I’m looking forward to holiday stories and pictures on facebook soon!

As for anything else; I will wave goodbye.

Good review and really help us understand google wave better.

A very practical review. Thank you so much.

At first I think it is great for project management. Then feel it is a kind of BBS on the web..

But it is lack of editorial features which really suck..and how to store waves/projects conversations and all materials in a folder?

Still lots to explore.

Q: What is Google Wave good for?
A: Wasting bandwidth

[...] Check out Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway, on TechCrunch Share this with a friend!Close Bookmark and Share This Page Save to Browser [...]

Completely agree and well said. There are some great benefits to this, especially how it links to google health. Obviously there are some privacy and security issues that need to be addressed when dealing with sensitive information, but the technology is great.

Exactly!

[...] http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/ [...]

[...] Artikel wurde von Martin Seibert am 26. November 2009 auf TechCrunch.com [...]

just take it or leave it.. lol

yeah… just take it or leave it… simple thing lol

[...] This article was also published on TechCrunch.com. [...]

Why are you waiting for someone to be online? If you’ve got an idea, record it. The point of the tool is to collaborate whether or not people are online.

It’s now a month later, and many of the bugs in wave you have listed have been closed.

Why did you say that you can’t share files in GW? I’ve seen that done. Even at the time you wrote your comment.

I imagine that Google designed the tool mainly for use by professionals, and didn’t care so much about how children use it.

How many times to people have to be reminded that it is in preview mode right now? All these issues will be gone when released. Is anyone paying attention???

I disagree. I thought the article was well written and informative, especially for people just learning about Wave. I felt the author made it abundantly clear that Wave is in preview mode, and many of the issues now in it will disappear over time.

[...] who have tried it, you won’t be surprised that it’s been described as confusing and is not well liked by critics. But are we expecting too much? Google’s got a great track record but not [...]

[...] Internet Experten Seibert “from Germany” – man hätte nicht ahnen können, dass Google Wave in Deutschland so ernst genommen würde. Gleichzeitig dankt er Mike Arrington dafür, dass er keinen Amerikaner hat derart ins offene [...]

[...] November 2009 ist im TechCrunch-Blog der ausführliche Gastartikel Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway erschienen, den //SEIBERT/MEDIA-Kollegen und externe Kontakte zusammen mit mir entwickelt haben. In [...]

People are getting more and more stupid and to make their life easier technology is getting less complicating by making its interface simpler.

However Google wave does the opposite. It’s interface is a mess and normal human can’t figure it out. People need something like Twitter. EASY!

Hope Google won’t make that mistake again.

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/ [...]

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/ [...]

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/ [...]

[...] Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/26/why-google-wave-sucks/ [...]

Google Wave is just a preview yet, but it already gets project management features with Wrike.com.
Over a million Wave users can now turn their waves into tasks with due dates and update their project schedules directly from the Wave: http://bit.ly/cBav2k

Hi Martin,

I think it’s really important for you to say that current Wave release is a PREVIEW, and not an official one.

All the flaws you point out are imputable to its immaturity: you should do the same test on the official release.

Plus, I think it’s ridiculous saying things like those written in “Remember: don’t share confidential information in waves” paragraph: the same happens today if you send some confidential information by email, or snail mail. Once you send something, it’s sent!

Please be more neutral!

Thanks

Federico from Italy

[...] Struktur des zugrundeliegenden Google Wave Federation Protocols als positiv an. Wie in diesem TechCrunch Beitrag zu lesen ist, gibt es einige Voraussetzungen auf Seite der Unternehmen, die für eine [...]

I’m so fed up with all the whining bitches out there, especially the ones with no technical knowledge or know how.

This is a fantastic idea, with creative people working around the clock to try and give us what we want. Who the feck are you to criticise??? Ask yourself what have you contributed? to anything?

There will of course be problems in any programme, especially when it is still been tested.

The reason you got an invite was to give feedback, The reason for this is so that the people who made this all possible, can make it better and iron out the creases.

So to all the people out there complaining, (and probably using the spell check that these people created) a big fat F— Y–

And on behalf of all the people that love Google, Google spell check, Google maps etcetera etcetera
Thank you sooooo much for making our lives easier and more interesting. Please ignore all the A.Holes out there, and keep up the good work xx

As an idea, it has value. Criticisms of its current execution also have merit. Ultimately, it's a free country – those who find value in it are free to use it, those who don't are free to use something else.

Here's a simple example of how this "idea" offered value in my office – http://nontechietalk.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-...

"As soon as you invite somebody to a wave, he can access it forever. If the discussion reveals secrets you don’t want to share with all participants, you’re out of luck"
–From above article

Actually, I've tried to remove people from waves, and in one sense you are right that you can't remove them from the main wave. But if you want to make a certain "blip" in the wave be hidden from them, you can insert a "private reply" which can be visible by only you, you and two other people, or any other combination you like.

For me the problem with Google wave, is that it doesn’t seem to be good for anything.

Give me a URL to somewhere where it is actually used for something and ill take a look.

For now all i see is a messed up buggy slow GUI for typing text into.
What is the point?

I will keep on focusing on Foswiki and Confluence. :-)