I think the most important part is this: > * Assuming you could stand Wave’s interface, it’d still be useless unless the people you wanted to communicate and c

I think the most important part is this: > * Assuming you could stand Wave’s interface, it’d still be useless unless the people you wanted to communicate and collaborate with were also using it. Wave was intended to completely replace existing systems like email and chat, so it had no provisions for interoperating with those systems. To succeed, Wave required a revolution, a critical mass of people switching to the new way and dragging the rest of the world with them—and those haven’t worked out very often. > * Making the revolution even more unlikely, initially Google offered Wave accounts by invitation only, so the people you wanted to talk with probably couldn’t even get an account. I was excited about Google Wave at the time but first had to wait what felt like ages for an invite and then barely anyone I knew was on it and I quickly ran out of invites myself (because not everyone you send an invite will be as excited to use it as you are). To replace e-mail it would have had to at least provide some kind of gateway between wave and e-mail to ease the transition -- or it would have had to integrate more closely with other tools and applications to "trick" people into adopting it (like how Google Talk integrated with GMail). The "openness" was neat but didn't help them gain any traction because there was no incentive to actually build and run your own server because there were no users.