Google Wave – bloatware or evolution?
by Stii
Its been a while since I’ve felt this conflicted about new technology. Google describes Google Wave as “email if it was developed for the first time today”. A lot has been said about Google Wave and I’m not going to go into how it works. What I do think though is that people have either been skeptical or amazed by it. This is where I confuse myself once more :P
My initial thoughts were “Bloody hell! Brilliant! Just what the world needs. A long awaited email evolution!”. Then I started rationalizing my thoughts and it sunk in. Maybe it is not what we need… Then I got more confused as suddenly it didn’t look like email at all! Then even further, if this replaces email, I’m going offline since I cannot bear the thought of live email…
Yes, it makes sense. It is the next logical step, no? No. It is cool. It will probably get an uptake by early adopters. The determining factor will be how Google promotes and sell this. How they plan to get adoption. By the looks of things, they haven’t given it much thought. In fact, they were so scared of Microsoft’s Bing, they announced it completely prematurely.
Google said they’re releasing it later this year. They said the same of Chrome for Mac. Yet we wait… Open Sourcing it? Brilliant. We can all work for Google for free nowadays! Got to love that strategy. It is a strategy that gets my gears turning…
My current opinion? Bloatware
Agreed. What makes email almost bearable is the fact that you can view unread mails when it suits you. Wave just seems like it’s ‘on’ all the time, and you’re expected to participate real-time. That’s my take.
Can you imagine how annoying it will become? Like Twitter just far more serious…
I’m really disappointed in the way this is being hyped. Even Seth Godin hyped it recently in a blogpost.
Google Earth? THAT was revolutionary. Wave is just mashup of services already available for years. Heck, even Microsoft offers Office Live and Microsoft Shared View. This isn’t new.
Not impressed.
Ditto. I with Johan. It seems a overhaul in packaging, but inside still the same old stuff. Will watch from the sideline for a while.
IT IS A REVOLUTION! FB is populated by IDIOTS!
What is interesting is the way everyone who positively punts Wave doesn’t so much punt the service as much as a change in attitute amongst employees and collaborators. See for example:
http://thinkvitamin.com/dev/six-ways-that-google-wave-is-going-to-change-your-business-career-and-life/
Maybe I’ll be proved wrong – maybe I’ll even come to love Wave and wonder how I every came to love without it. I’m just a tad skeptical of hype. I’m always sceptical about hype, hehe…
Big help, big help. And spuelrative news of course.