6 ms·

Dear Lars, next time don’t stop doing that weird drug

26 points by dwynings 16y ago

fraserharris 16y ago
When I could get my business partners to use Wave, we found it to be a very good brainstorming / organization tool. I still think there is an opportunity for someone to build a product on its open-source foundations: http://code.google.com/p/wave-protocol/ http://code.google.com/p/wave-protocol/
lukifer 16y ago
Google Wave is an excellent example of why it's so important to manage expectations. If it was released as being a nifty tool for early adopters, and given a few years to iterate based on user feedback, it could have lived up to its charge of becoming the new standard for collaboration and communication. Instead, it left people disappointed by promising everything before it was done cooking. I'm still hopeful that the codebase will be worked on by the OSS community, and/or some enterprising hackers will come along and implement the core concept more effectively.
- samdk 16y ago
  It's interesting that you mention wanting someone to implement the "core concept" more effectively, because I think that one of the biggest problems with Wave was that it didn't have a well-defined core concept. It was billed as the Next Big Thing, the replacement for email and instant messaging and everything else, but it wasn't particularly good at doing any of them, and nobody had any real idea of what it was supposed to be doing. "Do everything well" is a pretty problematic core concept. I do think that something can be a subset of Wave's functionality and still be useful (I use Flowdock[0] every day, and wrote GitChat[1] for Rails Rumble, and both are essentially web-based persistent chat applications). However, I'm unsure if Wave's codebase is the best place to start. It's very hard to apply a new (much narrower) focus on top of an existing project than it is to start from scratch. [0] http://flowdock.com/ http://flowdock.com/ (Persistent chat with searchable tags, uploads, and some other useful features.) [1] http://gitchat.com/ http://gitchat.com/ (Flowdock-inspired persistent chat for open-source GitHub projects. Originally developed for Rails Rumble, and we haven't had a chance to work on it since, so it's still very buggy. It will definitely be stabilized/improved at some point though.)
  - tgriesser 16y ago
    That's the biggest problem with billing something as the "Next Big Thing"... no one has any idea what that will even look like, so trying to hype something as the next big thing before it is released is setting it up for disappointment 100% of the time.
  - noibl 16y ago
    The core concept is: a robust method for automatically merging concurrent changes to a published resource by collaborating users in real-time (OT). It's true that other key components of Wave were seen as essential to its success (in particular the federation protocol and the bots API) but those were still designed in support of the core use-case: real-time collaborative editing. There was a ridiculous amount of hype about the project and all the things it might replace but that doesn't change the fact that its development was and is focused on solving an actual problem using real technological innovation.
    - samdk 16y ago
      This is actually exactly what I meant by a lack of focus. That may be the focus of the underlying codebase (and that may be where the innovation is), but the UI was just really a glorified chat room. It wasn't particularly suited to actually doing real-time editing.
      - noibl 16y ago
        The UI from Google was little more than proof-of-concept. The ability to sync arbitrary data, not just chat text, on the fly is what will make Wave useful if it ever sees wide adoption. That really is the core concept and not chat, as many seem to think. It's not accurate to say that there's no core concept.
reinhardt 16y ago
"Everything we do needs to be shared. Everything." Congrats, Zuckerberg would be proud of you. (pukes)
metra 16y ago
"On Facebook they don’t have spam. Why not? Because, unlike Google Wave, only people who I’ve friended AND who friended me back can send me messages. That’s how Wave should have worked." I guess that depends on your definition of spam. To me, reminders every minute of what an acquaintance is doing certainly IS spam.
- Devilboy 16y ago
  At least you can remove the annoying friends from your Facebook if you want.

26 points by dwynings 16y ago

When I could get my business partners to use Wave, we found it to be a very good brainstorming / organization tool. I still think there is an opportunity for someone to build a product on its open-source foundations: http://code.google.com/p/wave-protocol/ http://code.google.com/p/wave-protocol/

lukifer 16y ago

Google Wave is an excellent example of why it's so important to manage expectations. If it was released as being a nifty tool for early adopters, and given a few years to iterate based on user feedback, it could have lived up to its charge of becoming the new standard for collaboration and communication. Instead, it left people disappointed by promising everything before it was done cooking. I'm still hopeful that the codebase will be worked on by the OSS community, and/or some enterprising hackers will come along and implement the core concept more effectively.

samdk 16y ago
It's interesting that you mention wanting someone to implement the "core concept" more effectively, because I think that one of the biggest problems with Wave was that it didn't have a well-defined core concept. It was billed as the Next Big Thing, the replacement for email and instant messaging and everything else, but it wasn't particularly good at doing any of them, and nobody had any real idea of what it was supposed to be doing. "Do everything well" is a pretty problematic core concept. I do think that something can be a subset of Wave's functionality and still be useful (I use Flowdock[0] every day, and wrote GitChat[1] for Rails Rumble, and both are essentially web-based persistent chat applications). However, I'm unsure if Wave's codebase is the best place to start. It's very hard to apply a new (much narrower) focus on top of an existing project than it is to start from scratch. [0] http://flowdock.com/ http://flowdock.com/ (Persistent chat with searchable tags, uploads, and some other useful features.) [1] http://gitchat.com/ http://gitchat.com/ (Flowdock-inspired persistent chat for open-source GitHub projects. Originally developed for Rails Rumble, and we haven't had a chance to work on it since, so it's still very buggy. It will definitely be stabilized/improved at some point though.)
- tgriesser 16y ago
  That's the biggest problem with billing something as the "Next Big Thing"... no one has any idea what that will even look like, so trying to hype something as the next big thing before it is released is setting it up for disappointment 100% of the time.
- noibl 16y ago
  The core concept is: a robust method for automatically merging concurrent changes to a published resource by collaborating users in real-time (OT). It's true that other key components of Wave were seen as essential to its success (in particular the federation protocol and the bots API) but those were still designed in support of the core use-case: real-time collaborative editing. There was a ridiculous amount of hype about the project and all the things it might replace but that doesn't change the fact that its development was and is focused on solving an actual problem using real technological innovation.
  - samdk 16y ago
    This is actually exactly what I meant by a lack of focus. That may be the focus of the underlying codebase (and that may be where the innovation is), but the UI was just really a glorified chat room. It wasn't particularly suited to actually doing real-time editing.
    - noibl 16y ago
      The UI from Google was little more than proof-of-concept. The ability to sync arbitrary data, not just chat text, on the fly is what will make Wave useful if it ever sees wide adoption. That really is the core concept and not chat, as many seem to think. It's not accurate to say that there's no core concept.

reinhardt 16y ago

"Everything we do needs to be shared. Everything." Congrats, Zuckerberg would be proud of you. (pukes)

metra 16y ago

"On Facebook they don’t have spam. Why not? Because, unlike Google Wave, only people who I’ve friended AND who friended me back can send me messages. That’s how Wave should have worked." I guess that depends on your definition of spam. To me, reminders every minute of what an acquaintance is doing certainly IS spam.

Devilboy 16y ago
At least you can remove the annoying friends from your Facebook if you want.