Google Wave Attenuated

Google is shutting down development (and eventually support) for Google Wave.

Apparently next to no one cared about this overly-complicated unperformant solution in search of a problem; assuming you could get an invite in the first place (and that those you would want to collaborate with could as well).

That's really lame. I really liked the concept behind Wave.

Bass said:

That's really lame. I really liked the concept behind Wave.

I couldn't convince anyone else to use it. And there lies the basic problem, it was a geek toy. I wish Microsoft, Google, and Apple could get together and form something like the w3c for email. It seems like the only time the ball is kicked forward is when you have both competition and cooperation; competition to be the first in the race to implement features that are cooperatively agreeded upon.

Just look at the progress around HTML5 and what that has done for everyone.

-Josh

Wow...I thought it at least had another year.

In terms of collaboration, I just didn't see where it fit between teleconference/live meeting (which large corporations who could afford long distance offices would benefit from) and face-to-face/phone/IM/video chat communication (which small businesses and colocated project teams are more likely to use). When it's just you doing the content creation, Wave becomes nothing more than a wiki. The added benefit (communicating with someone to keep a history of that communication) only happens when another participates. And even when you can get to this benefit...who really wants to keep some form of disorderly communication?  Most people would rather jot down summary notes from meetings and phone conversations.

Oh, and the see someone type thing was a gimmick. Worse...it lagged for me.

So, yes, I'm not surprised this failed.

Google droping their own stuff? I wonder if this will become a trend of theirs or not.

Ouch. Wasn't this all hyped to become the big next thing that would finally assure Google's dominance once and for all?

Google created a bunch of hype but allowed nobody to actually use the damn product. By the time they opened it up to the public nobody cared any more.

It was also never clear exactly what Google Wave even does; it is like handing someone a blank piece of paper and say "isn't this awesome! Think of what you could do!" In an odd way, would have been better if they built a handful of example applications on top of Google Wave (e.g. Workplace Collaboration Suite).

I'd love to see an e-mail replacement. As JoshRoss unless all the big providers got on board it is unlikely to work. Less so if current e-mail and "new" e-mail cannot inter-connect.

Well from some posts I read it sounds like a smashing success. I signed up for trying it, but when it turned out that either Chrome or some native activex was required to use it I didn't bother with it again, solely because Google has smashingly poor track record with its native applications, they're just as bad as Apple apps on windows - both companies are blacklisted from my systems. It takes just one rogue app (like Itunes or Google Earth) that they don't fix within a reasonable time to get blacklisted (Tried new versions with year apart, later in VM to see if they got their act together). Rogue app is defined here as anything that either installs stuff I don't need or installs services that are not essential to operate the application. Or mess with registry settings so they subtly break other apps. And Google & Apple apps I've tried do all that so fat chance of me ever installing anything from them again!

Now I doubt that was the reason it flopped in user adoption (obviously since people use Itunes...). The concept as presented on the demos is still solid in my mind, however the implementation (perf, installation of Google's native stuff) and marketing (I got idea what it was good for immediately but if I hadn't watched the long presentation I'm not sure I'd know what it was good for) was probably where it took the hard hit.

Some posts from random blog:

- Google Wave revolutionised the way my small business operated, and was a key reason we use Google Apps for all email etc. Conversations happen in real-time irrespective of location. Loud members are quietened simply because they can't interrupt, and true group collaboration has emerged.  All our staff use it without issue, no training will, is, or has ever been provided - it was natural. Multiple conversations could occur simultaneously, with each user offering their strengths on each topic as required.
I'll be looking for an alternative to Google Wave without hesitation. Any recommendations?

- As above, our small business runs on google wave. I don't know of any other free technology that functions so well and easily for group collaboration and task management.

Wave was lame. Glad to see it go.

androidi said:

Well from some posts I read it sounds like a smashing success. I signed up for trying it, but when it turned out that either Chrome or some native activex was required to use it I didn't bother with it again, solely because Google has smashingly poor track record with its native applications, they're just as bad as Apple apps on windows - both companies are blacklisted from my systems. It takes just one rogue app (like Itunes or Google Earth) that they don't fix within a reasonable time to get blacklisted (Tried new versions with year apart, later in VM to see if they got their act together). Rogue app is defined here as anything that either installs stuff I don't need or installs services that are not essential to operate the application. Or mess with registry settings so they subtly break other apps. And Google & Apple apps I've tried do all that so fat chance of me ever installing anything from them again!

 

Now I doubt that was the reason it flopped in user adoption (obviously since people use Itunes...). The concept as presented on the demos is still solid in my mind, however the implementation (perf, installation of Google's native stuff) and marketing (I got idea what it was good for immediately but if I hadn't watched the long presentation I'm not sure I'd know what it was good for) was probably where it took the hard hit.

 

Some posts from random blog:

 

- Google Wave revolutionised the way my small business operated, and was a key reason we use Google Apps for all email etc. Conversations happen in real-time irrespective of location. Loud members are quietened simply because they can't interrupt, and true group collaboration has emerged.  All our staff use it without issue, no training will, is, or has ever been provided - it was natural. Multiple conversations could occur simultaneously, with each user offering their strengths on each topic as required.
I'll be looking for an alternative to Google Wave without hesitation. Any recommendations?

 

- As above, our small business runs on google wave. I don't know of any other free technology that functions so well and easily for group collaboration and task management.

 

 

 

I don't recognize this picture of Google desktop applications at all. Picasa and Talk are very fast and clean and use concurrency well to remove most latency. In my memory the same was true for Google Earth. The iTunes UX sucks compared to more or less everything else - not in terms of design but performance. Chrome is also recognized for its performance and incredibly clean UX although the performance is not very consistent.

I think the reason this Wave product flopped is because 1) the UX is very poor, 2) it's still slow and 3) people like to use desktop applications for communications (Messenger). Google will have a chance to integrate some of the ideas into social networking. We'll see if they can threaten facebook; I wouldn't hold my breath but they'll take a shot heh.

exoteric said:

androidi said:

*snip*

I don't recognize this picture of Google desktop applications at all. Picasa and Talk are very fast and clean and use concurrency well to remove most latency. In my memory the same was true for Google Earth. The iTunes UX sucks compared to more or less everything else - not in terms of design but performance. Chrome is also recognized for its performance and incredibly clean UX although the performance is not very consistent.

 

I think the reason this Wave product flopped is because 1) the UX is very poor, 2) it's still slow and 3) people like to use desktop applications for communications (Messenger). Google will have a chance to integrate some of the ideas into social networking. We'll see if they can threaten facebook; I wouldn't hold my breath but they'll take a shot heh.

Also maybe it flopped because Google built it themselves from scratch, its a departure from their other products which are usually acquisitions or based on an existing codebase.

Picasa was great before Google bought it.  Talk is built around libjingle, Google Earth is rebranded acquisition, Chrome is built around webkit, Android is built on Linux, Google Docs is a rebranded acquisition, etc.

CreamFilling512 said:

exoteric said:

*snip*

Also maybe it flopped because Google built it themselves from scratch, its a departure from their other products which are usually acquisitions or based on an existing codebase.

 

Picasa was great before Google bought it.  Talk is built around libjingle, Google Earth is rebranded acquisition, Chrome is built around webkit, Android is built on Linux, Google Docs is a rebranded acquisition, etc.

On the contrary; Gmail's probably Google's most successful non-search product, and they built it all themselves.

And obviously, their core businesses (search and advertising) were all developed by Google.

CreamFilling512 said:

exoteric said:

*snip*

Also maybe it flopped because Google built it themselves from scratch, its a departure from their other products which are usually acquisitions or based on an existing codebase.

 

Picasa was great before Google bought it.  Talk is built around libjingle, Google Earth is rebranded acquisition, Chrome is built around webkit, Android is built on Linux, Google Docs is a rebranded acquisition, etc.

It's not really that important, once bought, the company has been assimilated into the hive. On a different note, I'm wondering what Google is up to with their Go language.  What software are they building that is/ will use it.

I never got an invitation till the end : )

CannotResolveSymbol said:

CreamFilling512 said:

*snip*

On the contrary; Gmail's probably Google's most successful non-search product, and they built it all themselves.

 

And obviously, their core businesses (search and advertising) were all developed by Google.

I thought Google search was from the Stanford research project.