4 ms·

Why Google Wave needs a major overhaul

18 points by swombat 17y ago

elblanco 17y ago
The original intention for Wave was as a protocol. The Wave client we all use at wave.google.com is just a reference client. Anybody know of other clients that do better?
- ThomPete 17y ago
  Etherpad?
  - swombat 17y ago
    Certainly better for some uses. I think a key point is that there's no reason why Etherpad couldn't (or shouldn't) be built on top of Wave.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Well the Etherpad guys are working at Google on the Wave team now so you never know
      - swombat 17y ago
        My point was more that some other thing like Etherpad, in the future, will be built directly on Wave instead of having to build AppJet first to be able to build a text editor on top.
kordless 17y ago
Everyone got really excited during the demo at Google I/O, but the second I used it my reaction was "what do I do with this?". Email, IM and Twitter. That's all I need.
- dantheman 17y ago
  Wave is great for organizing trips (or at least in concept it should be, unfortunately it still needs a lot of work). That's pretty much the only thing i use it for.
dustingetz 17y ago
FUD; a wave-to-email gateway is solved by design.
stanleydrew 17y ago
Seems to me that wave needs an overhaul at the product level. If I can't quickly discover compelling uses of the product then I think the product is flawed. It feels a lot like wave was developed in a vacuum compared to Google's other products. For instance, I don't think many people inside Google use wave, which is the complete opposite of gmail, gchat/gtalk, calendar and docs. That should be a significant signal right there.
jasonlotito 17y ago
Seriously, this article ignores the important aspect of Wave, something that it doesn't ignore for something like Email. Email is useless without other people using Email. So is a chat program. Wave is useless without other people as well. This is why Wave isn't based around Google, but rather, a protocol that anyone can use. Consider that email was first 'invented' in the early 70's, and SMTP in the early 80's, emails adoption speed was comparable to that of a glacier in terms of todays adoption speeds. Wave is such a big undertaking that even Google will have to work hard to move it forward. But consider for a moment how much work is involved with email, and yet, today, how easy it is to integrate with your average website. Indeed, we don't think about how much is built on email. It's wide spread use lets us forget that it would be useless if no one else used it. So yes, while the Google Wave client is still in its infancy, and Wave itself is still an early idea, the idea and what it represents is major. Email, IM, Social Networking, etc, won't be replaced by Wave, much like none of these replaced Email as a means to communicate. Rather, Wave will become apart of these means of communication. Wave is the protocol that allows for this communication. Something as simple as Hacker News comments could easily be a wave, and it wouldn't require us, the users to do anything, yet we could benefit greatly from Wave being apart of the system. So every time I see someone complain about Wave, I can't help but think that they would have said the same thing about email when it first appeared.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  I feel like Wave is not really something for the masses, at least not right now - I never feel the compulsion to use Wave at home, but I definitely feel it at work, where there are gigantic, meandering email threads that defy my ability to track the different tangents that sprout. My hunch is that Wave was born internally to address that specific problem - corporate email and its requisite long discussions with way too many people. Part of its struggle is to prove its usefulness and relevance to people who don't deal with this type of communication.
  - jasonlotito 17y ago
    The thing is, it works the same way email does, but it also has additional capabilities as well. The problem is, email is widely supported, wave isn't. Imagine every instance where email is used and you can replace it with Wave. The benefits to Wave might not be immediately and as widely as useful in every situation to everyone person, but that's more a matter of it not being used in a wide spread way. Imagine Amazon using Wave instead of Email, along with it's customers using Wave instead of Email. Amazon could use Wave to automatically update the Wave of a person's order with the latest shipping information. This shipping information can be bulled in from Canada Post (or wherever) and automatically update. Rather then sending out a full email every time something changes, they could simply send along an update that updates the original Wave. Nothing is lost, due to the nature of Wave, but it suddenly becomes much easier to find the information I want.
00joe 17y ago
It seems like Buzz should have been based on Wave
dlevine 17y ago
Wave is and always will be a research project. It was only launched because Google doesn't believe in pure research projects, and mistakenly classified it as a "product."
chanux 17y ago
Not a great long article like this but I put my thoughts about Buzz together on my blog and I think HNers might like to see it. http://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/my-buzz-rant http://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/my-buzz-rant
jsz0 17y ago
I wish Google had used the time and effort they put into Wave instead to beef up Google Docs. To me Google Docs itself could be a great collaborative tool if the applications weren't so crippled and basic. Integrate it with G-Chat, add a OneNote style information management tool and make Docs/Spreadsheets at least as functional as an early 90's Windows 3.x Office suite. I'm really baffled at the lack of attention Google Docs is getting while all these new Google services spring up. Someone (probably Microsoft) is going to eat their lunch. I admire that Google is trying to push forward with a new way of doing things via Wave but ignoring what users actually want today, a good collaborative office package, and conceding the market to someone else is just a dumb move for an advertising company to make. You gotta give the people what they want.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  I think though in this case, what people say they want isn't what they really need.
nfnaaron 17y ago
I've been involved in a couple of "please participate in some interactive feedback on my app" wave discussions with some friends. People had to email me to make me aware of the waves. I'm not normally signed in to google. So there's a participation/discovery speed bump for people like me. However, there was no speed bump in getting that initial message to me via email. Removing that hard to see speed bump, and other things like it, might benefit wave more than feature fixing.
stcredzero 17y ago
I find that about 1/2 of the objections in this post have todo with cultural, not technical issues.
srnm 17y ago
We've been using Wave a bit at work. It's nice that a ping (IM) can turn into a threaded chat can turn into a document. Editing, with change bars, is great. It's also great that you can add someone to a wave "late" and they get to see the current state of the wave -- and the history if they care. Much better than forwarding someone an email that has done the rounds. I agree with the person that suggested it is more useful "for work". Think of it more as "Lotus Notes"-lite than email.

18 points by swombat 17y ago

The original intention for Wave was as a protocol. The Wave client we all use at wave.google.com is just a reference client. Anybody know of other clients that do better?

ThomPete 17y ago
Etherpad?
- swombat 17y ago
  Certainly better for some uses. I think a key point is that there's no reason why Etherpad couldn't (or shouldn't) be built on top of Wave.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Well the Etherpad guys are working at Google on the Wave team now so you never know
    - swombat 17y ago
      My point was more that some other thing like Etherpad, in the future, will be built directly on Wave instead of having to build AppJet first to be able to build a text editor on top.

kordless 17y ago

Everyone got really excited during the demo at Google I/O, but the second I used it my reaction was "what do I do with this?". Email, IM and Twitter. That's all I need.

dantheman 17y ago
Wave is great for organizing trips (or at least in concept it should be, unfortunately it still needs a lot of work). That's pretty much the only thing i use it for.

dustingetz 17y ago

FUD; a wave-to-email gateway is solved by design.

stanleydrew 17y ago

Seems to me that wave needs an overhaul at the product level. If I can't quickly discover compelling uses of the product then I think the product is flawed. It feels a lot like wave was developed in a vacuum compared to Google's other products. For instance, I don't think many people inside Google use wave, which is the complete opposite of gmail, gchat/gtalk, calendar and docs. That should be a significant signal right there.

jasonlotito 17y ago

Seriously, this article ignores the important aspect of Wave, something that it doesn't ignore for something like Email. Email is useless without other people using Email. So is a chat program. Wave is useless without other people as well. This is why Wave isn't based around Google, but rather, a protocol that anyone can use. Consider that email was first 'invented' in the early 70's, and SMTP in the early 80's, emails adoption speed was comparable to that of a glacier in terms of todays adoption speeds. Wave is such a big undertaking that even Google will have to work hard to move it forward. But consider for a moment how much work is involved with email, and yet, today, how easy it is to integrate with your average website. Indeed, we don't think about how much is built on email. It's wide spread use lets us forget that it would be useless if no one else used it. So yes, while the Google Wave client is still in its infancy, and Wave itself is still an early idea, the idea and what it represents is major. Email, IM, Social Networking, etc, won't be replaced by Wave, much like none of these replaced Email as a means to communicate. Rather, Wave will become apart of these means of communication. Wave is the protocol that allows for this communication. Something as simple as Hacker News comments could easily be a wave, and it wouldn't require us, the users to do anything, yet we could benefit greatly from Wave being apart of the system. So every time I see someone complain about Wave, I can't help but think that they would have said the same thing about email when it first appeared.

potatolicious 17y ago
I feel like Wave is not really something for the masses, at least not right now - I never feel the compulsion to use Wave at home, but I definitely feel it at work, where there are gigantic, meandering email threads that defy my ability to track the different tangents that sprout. My hunch is that Wave was born internally to address that specific problem - corporate email and its requisite long discussions with way too many people. Part of its struggle is to prove its usefulness and relevance to people who don't deal with this type of communication.
- jasonlotito 17y ago
  The thing is, it works the same way email does, but it also has additional capabilities as well. The problem is, email is widely supported, wave isn't. Imagine every instance where email is used and you can replace it with Wave. The benefits to Wave might not be immediately and as widely as useful in every situation to everyone person, but that's more a matter of it not being used in a wide spread way. Imagine Amazon using Wave instead of Email, along with it's customers using Wave instead of Email. Amazon could use Wave to automatically update the Wave of a person's order with the latest shipping information. This shipping information can be bulled in from Canada Post (or wherever) and automatically update. Rather then sending out a full email every time something changes, they could simply send along an update that updates the original Wave. Nothing is lost, due to the nature of Wave, but it suddenly becomes much easier to find the information I want.

00joe 17y ago

It seems like Buzz should have been based on Wave

dlevine 17y ago

Wave is and always will be a research project. It was only launched because Google doesn't believe in pure research projects, and mistakenly classified it as a "product."

chanux 17y ago

Not a great long article like this but I put my thoughts about Buzz together on my blog and I think HNers might like to see it. http://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/my-buzz-rant http://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/my-buzz-rant

jsz0 17y ago

I wish Google had used the time and effort they put into Wave instead to beef up Google Docs. To me Google Docs itself could be a great collaborative tool if the applications weren't so crippled and basic. Integrate it with G-Chat, add a OneNote style information management tool and make Docs/Spreadsheets at least as functional as an early 90's Windows 3.x Office suite. I'm really baffled at the lack of attention Google Docs is getting while all these new Google services spring up. Someone (probably Microsoft) is going to eat their lunch. I admire that Google is trying to push forward with a new way of doing things via Wave but ignoring what users actually want today, a good collaborative office package, and conceding the market to someone else is just a dumb move for an advertising company to make. You gotta give the people what they want.

jasonlotito 17y ago
I think though in this case, what people say they want isn't what they really need.

nfnaaron 17y ago

I've been involved in a couple of "please participate in some interactive feedback on my app" wave discussions with some friends. People had to email me to make me aware of the waves. I'm not normally signed in to google. So there's a participation/discovery speed bump for people like me. However, there was no speed bump in getting that initial message to me via email. Removing that hard to see speed bump, and other things like it, might benefit wave more than feature fixing.

stcredzero 17y ago

I find that about 1/2 of the objections in this post have todo with cultural, not technical issues.

srnm 17y ago

We've been using Wave a bit at work. It's nice that a ping (IM) can turn into a threaded chat can turn into a document. Editing, with change bars, is great. It's also great that you can add someone to a wave "late" and they get to see the current state of the wave -- and the history if they care. Much better than forwarding someone an email that has done the rounds. I agree with the person that suggested it is more useful "for work". Think of it more as "Lotus Notes"-lite than email.