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To me, Wave failed because it wasn't a product. It was an engineering exercise. There was a lot of interesting technology in Wave (eg the Wave protocol itself,

by cletus 16y ago

To me, Wave failed because it wasn't a product. It was an engineering exercise. There was a lot of interesting technology in Wave (eg the Wave protocol itself, federated servers). But what problem did it solve? No one really seemed able to answer that. When I looked at Wave I saw a set of primitives from which you could build email, IM, Twitter or any other number of communication mediums. The problem is that people could already do all of those things elsewhere. Did Wave make it easier? If it did, it might've stood a fighting chance. But it didn't. The UI was complicated. On most browsers it was slow. Part of what made Google the search behemoth that it is (apart from the obvious algorithmic improvements over what came before it) was the simplicity of it. It was the simplest of pages (compared the shotgun portals of Yahoo and the like) with a giant text box. Anyone could look at it and know what to do. What's more it was fast. So I would take Wave as an object lesson in what happens when you seek to solve an interesting engineering problem rather than build a product.

elehack 16y ago
For me, Wave had one very strong use case: collaboration and discussion intended to result in a persistent document. Forums, mailing lists, e-mail, etc. are great for discussion, but they are generally ephemeral. Documents are persistent, and with Google Docs can be created collaboratively, but the communication channels around them are weak. You're limited to distracting in-document text, limited comments, or entirely out-of-band communication e.g. e-mail. With Wave you could have the document, editable by anyone, and embed discussion in it and around it. You can discuss a point, updating the base document as discussion converges. It's a brilliant medium for group brainstorming and drafting. That use case alone is enough to make me miss it.
- pestaa 16y ago
  While I definitely agree this would have worked as a great collaboration tool, anyone I tried it with just did not get it, and we ended up using it as a I'm-seeing-what-you're-typing chat box.
waterside81 16y ago
Cletus since you work at Google, can you share what the feeling was internally about Wave? Were people excited and sure of its success or was there some doubt?
- cletus 16y ago
  I'm sure you can appreciate that I have to respect the confidentiality with which I've been entrusted as a Google employee. This includes not only commenting on internal matters I do know about but also matters which it may appear I have knowledge of. It's not in my interest or Google's for me to unwittingly start a rumour because of something I carelessly say. Wave predates me joining Google. My thoughts on it predate Google (I think I wrote a blog post about it some time last year). So, just to be clear, any views expressed here are strictly my own. I'm sure you understand.
  - invisiblefunnel 16y ago
    Cletus' Wave blog post: http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/08/google-wave-microsoft-and-engineers.html http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/08/google-wave-microsoft-and-...
guptaneil 16y ago
I upvoted you, but I disagree that Wave didn't solve a useful problem. In my opinion, it solved some key collaboration problems. The problem was that it was marketed as an engineering project, instead of a consumer product. Google positioned Wave as a new communication platform that would replace email, and that was just too much for users to wrap their heads around. Nobody could find a good reason to stop using email and switch to Wave. Google should have targeted the much smaller use case of document collaboration, even if the technology was capable of handling more, just to show people how they can start using the technology right away without having to change too much of their existing workflow. It's a classic example of the engineers letting their dreams get too big and forgetting to focus on the immediate problem they started with. Wave could have easily been saved by a better marketing team. Ironically, it seems Google has too many smart engineers, and has lost touch with what the average user needs or wants.
- Travis 16y ago
  We tried using Wave for our startup. Really, we did. We tried using it as a collaborative tool, as an communications tool, and as a toy. The bottom line was that we found we'd rather share a Word doc via DropBox, or send an email via gmail, than try to use the clunky, slow, confusing interface. In my experience it was the product that failed. YMMV.
  - guptaneil 16y ago
    It was slow and clunky, but that's something I forgave since it was still a preview and I assumed it would be fixed given more time. I'm talking about the core concept of Wave when I say the main problem was marketing. Obviously the product still needed development work, but it was on the right track IMO. It fit into my workflow very nicely, and I definitely miss it. I would love to see somebody take the open sourced code and release a more simplified, targeted version for group collaboration.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
Shorel 16y ago
Wave is a great tool to sell to companies as an Outlook/Exchange/Sharepoint/Office replacement. In that respect, it is very, very good. As a competitor to Facebook? I don't see the slightest similarity, and the gmail like marketing only hurt the product.

by cletus 16y ago

elehack 16y ago

For me, Wave had one very strong use case: collaboration and discussion intended to result in a persistent document. Forums, mailing lists, e-mail, etc. are great for discussion, but they are generally ephemeral. Documents are persistent, and with Google Docs can be created collaboratively, but the communication channels around them are weak. You're limited to distracting in-document text, limited comments, or entirely out-of-band communication e.g. e-mail. With Wave you could have the document, editable by anyone, and embed discussion in it and around it. You can discuss a point, updating the base document as discussion converges. It's a brilliant medium for group brainstorming and drafting. That use case alone is enough to make me miss it.

pestaa 16y ago
While I definitely agree this would have worked as a great collaboration tool, anyone I tried it with just did not get it, and we ended up using it as a I'm-seeing-what-you're-typing chat box.

waterside81 16y ago

Cletus since you work at Google, can you share what the feeling was internally about Wave? Were people excited and sure of its success or was there some doubt?

cletus 16y ago
I'm sure you can appreciate that I have to respect the confidentiality with which I've been entrusted as a Google employee. This includes not only commenting on internal matters I do know about but also matters which it may appear I have knowledge of. It's not in my interest or Google's for me to unwittingly start a rumour because of something I carelessly say. Wave predates me joining Google. My thoughts on it predate Google (I think I wrote a blog post about it some time last year). So, just to be clear, any views expressed here are strictly my own. I'm sure you understand.
- invisiblefunnel 16y ago
  Cletus' Wave blog post: http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/08/google-wave-microsoft-and-engineers.html http://www.cforcoding.com/2010/08/google-wave-microsoft-and-...

guptaneil 16y ago

I upvoted you, but I disagree that Wave didn't solve a useful problem. In my opinion, it solved some key collaboration problems. The problem was that it was marketed as an engineering project, instead of a consumer product. Google positioned Wave as a new communication platform that would replace email, and that was just too much for users to wrap their heads around. Nobody could find a good reason to stop using email and switch to Wave. Google should have targeted the much smaller use case of document collaboration, even if the technology was capable of handling more, just to show people how they can start using the technology right away without having to change too much of their existing workflow. It's a classic example of the engineers letting their dreams get too big and forgetting to focus on the immediate problem they started with. Wave could have easily been saved by a better marketing team. Ironically, it seems Google has too many smart engineers, and has lost touch with what the average user needs or wants.

Travis 16y ago
We tried using Wave for our startup. Really, we did. We tried using it as a collaborative tool, as an communications tool, and as a toy. The bottom line was that we found we'd rather share a Word doc via DropBox, or send an email via gmail, than try to use the clunky, slow, confusing interface. In my experience it was the product that failed. YMMV.
- guptaneil 16y ago
  It was slow and clunky, but that's something I forgave since it was still a preview and I assumed it would be fixed given more time. I'm talking about the core concept of Wave when I say the main problem was marketing. Obviously the product still needed development work, but it was on the right track IMO. It fit into my workflow very nicely, and I definitely miss it. I would love to see somebody take the open sourced code and release a more simplified, targeted version for group collaboration.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

Shorel 16y ago

Wave is a great tool to sell to companies as an Outlook/Exchange/Sharepoint/Office replacement. In that respect, it is very, very good. As a competitor to Facebook? I don't see the slightest similarity, and the gmail like marketing only hurt the product.