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So, the new thing they did is that they combined Chat and Wiki and then threw some API for mashing up. Made it pretty and Ajaxy. Well, mmm, Ok. I guess many peo

So, the new thing they did is that they combined Chat and Wiki and then threw some API for mashing up. Made it pretty and Ajaxy. Well, mmm, Ok. I guess many people will like it. I still prefer plain-text emails, though.

andreyf 17y ago
Back in my day, we didn't have any of these fancy real-time-mashups. If you wanted to mash up, you'd show up at the person's front door, pull out a map, and point at things.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  Back in my day, we used ICQ for collaborative document editing and chat. It worked.
  - sketerpot 17y ago
    Sounds kind of clunky, though.
- krav 17y ago
  Wonder what we'll be saying down the road...."in my day, we didn't have these fancy neuron teleporters. If you wanted to mash up, you'd use Twitter or Google Wave." Some young hacker would look up, scratch his head, ask, "What's Google?"
Scriptor 17y ago
combined Chat and Wiki and then threw some API for mashing up. Made it pretty and Ajaxy. Don't fall in the trap of using word choice to make something sound insignificant. Having several people edit the same document in real-time without problems, clearly see when and who updated what, and quickly look at the document's history (honestly, sites like Wikipedia's history feature is just ugly and clunky) can't really be called a wiki. The interface looks really busy from the screenshot and generally doesn't look like products Google usually makes (Chrome, Gmail have pretty clean interfaces, but maybe that's because I'm accustomed to them). If anything, I'm more interested in using the protocol and building a stripped-down version of it.
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  Yeah. The playback feature alone is a very difficult feature to successfully implement. The possibilities of this product is mind boggling. But will the complexity and learning curve be a stumbling block in adoption? Even if the consumer product doesn't take off, I expect wave to be hit in companies where people need to collaborate frequently especially since they can host their own wave server and not worry about hosting data with google.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    Just hide the levels of complexity, but make it easier for the user to delve into what they want. If they can make a web app that can let users unify their various notification/collaboration streams (Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, delicious, Flickr, IM, email...) then they have a winner. Especially if they can make a slick mobile version.
- DannoHung 17y ago
  I think it'd be more Googly if they got rid of the avatars, drop shadows, funky buttons and rounded corners (seriously, looks like someone barfed web 2.0 all over a screen) and ditched the 3 pane system, so clicking on a thread switched you over to the conversation itself rather than having the convo in a pane on the same page.
  - Zaak 17y ago
    You can maximize the conversation box to fill the page if you want. I expect it wouldn't be hard to tweak the client to do that automatically.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    My understanding is that this is just 'a' waves client, just as there are a bunch of quite different applications that let you use Twitter or GMail in a variety of different ways.
DannoHung 17y ago
If you don't think the idea of merging private, public, synchronous, and asynchronous communication into a cohesive unit is exciting, then I don't know what you would find exciting.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Maybe I want to keep my private and public conversations distinct, or my synchronous and asynchronous communications distinct. Doesn't it follow that I'd want specialized tools for each?
  - Maro 17y ago
    I agree, context is important, and humans are better at separating context if it's "physically" separated, eg. a different site or window. However, if you look at the Gmail+Gtalk use-case, the fact that all conversations that go through Google's Jabber servers are automatically indexed and searchable in Gmail alone is a killer feature (this also works if you use a desktop client like Adium, the point is, it makes sense to use Google as your IM provider for the indexing). So the point is, keeping as many docs/conversations/etc in some centralized Google app may be worth it just for the search/indexing. My final conclusion then is that other companies, in the long term, may have to implement Google-like search functionality (and storage), otherwise Google will suck up their application's users with search as a killer feature.
Kaizyn 17y ago
Be sure you actually understand the limitations to the existing solutions and what benefits convergence such as Google Wave may offer before you dismiss it out of hand. The merger of email, IM, and twitter into a new messaging system has tremendous potential.
- andrewl-hn 17y ago
  Yes, I do, but maybe it's just me but I don't feel uncomfortable when emails, IMs, and other means of communication are separated. Blended experience isn't always a good thing. For example, for me it's much easier to maintain my Flickr and Twitter accounts independently rather than having both my photos and my status updates inside Facebook. To me these are two distinctive task and to have them in separate browser tabs feels more natural. I'm afraid the notion of wave just got to many concepts thrown into. I would say that it's just to early to tell. Perhaps when I try it out it will replace everything else.
  - greyboy 17y ago
    I agree with you. I like the separation. Of course, I'm probably an outlier. I don't use Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, RSS readers, Flickr, etc.

andreyf 17y ago

Back in my day, we didn't have any of these fancy real-time-mashups. If you wanted to mash up, you'd show up at the person's front door, pull out a map, and point at things.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
aaronblohowiak 17y ago
Back in my day, we used ICQ for collaborative document editing and chat. It worked.
- sketerpot 17y ago
  Sounds kind of clunky, though.
krav 17y ago
Wonder what we'll be saying down the road...."in my day, we didn't have these fancy neuron teleporters. If you wanted to mash up, you'd use Twitter or Google Wave." Some young hacker would look up, scratch his head, ask, "What's Google?"

Scriptor 17y ago

combined Chat and Wiki and then threw some API for mashing up. Made it pretty and Ajaxy. Don't fall in the trap of using word choice to make something sound insignificant. Having several people edit the same document in real-time without problems, clearly see when and who updated what, and quickly look at the document's history (honestly, sites like Wikipedia's history feature is just ugly and clunky) can't really be called a wiki. The interface looks really busy from the screenshot and generally doesn't look like products Google usually makes (Chrome, Gmail have pretty clean interfaces, but maybe that's because I'm accustomed to them). If anything, I'm more interested in using the protocol and building a stripped-down version of it.

boundlessdreamz 17y ago
Yeah. The playback feature alone is a very difficult feature to successfully implement. The possibilities of this product is mind boggling. But will the complexity and learning curve be a stumbling block in adoption? Even if the consumer product doesn't take off, I expect wave to be hit in companies where people need to collaborate frequently especially since they can host their own wave server and not worry about hosting data with google.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  Just hide the levels of complexity, but make it easier for the user to delve into what they want. If they can make a web app that can let users unify their various notification/collaboration streams (Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, delicious, Flickr, IM, email...) then they have a winner. Especially if they can make a slick mobile version.
DannoHung 17y ago
I think it'd be more Googly if they got rid of the avatars, drop shadows, funky buttons and rounded corners (seriously, looks like someone barfed web 2.0 all over a screen) and ditched the 3 pane system, so clicking on a thread switched you over to the conversation itself rather than having the convo in a pane on the same page.
- Zaak 17y ago
  You can maximize the conversation box to fill the page if you want. I expect it wouldn't be hard to tweak the client to do that automatically.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  My understanding is that this is just 'a' waves client, just as there are a bunch of quite different applications that let you use Twitter or GMail in a variety of different ways.

DannoHung 17y ago

If you don't think the idea of merging private, public, synchronous, and asynchronous communication into a cohesive unit is exciting, then I don't know what you would find exciting.

philwelch 17y ago
Maybe I want to keep my private and public conversations distinct, or my synchronous and asynchronous communications distinct. Doesn't it follow that I'd want specialized tools for each?
- Maro 17y ago
  I agree, context is important, and humans are better at separating context if it's "physically" separated, eg. a different site or window. However, if you look at the Gmail+Gtalk use-case, the fact that all conversations that go through Google's Jabber servers are automatically indexed and searchable in Gmail alone is a killer feature (this also works if you use a desktop client like Adium, the point is, it makes sense to use Google as your IM provider for the indexing). So the point is, keeping as many docs/conversations/etc in some centralized Google app may be worth it just for the search/indexing. My final conclusion then is that other companies, in the long term, may have to implement Google-like search functionality (and storage), otherwise Google will suck up their application's users with search as a killer feature.

Kaizyn 17y ago

Be sure you actually understand the limitations to the existing solutions and what benefits convergence such as Google Wave may offer before you dismiss it out of hand. The merger of email, IM, and twitter into a new messaging system has tremendous potential.

andrewl-hn 17y ago
Yes, I do, but maybe it's just me but I don't feel uncomfortable when emails, IMs, and other means of communication are separated. Blended experience isn't always a good thing. For example, for me it's much easier to maintain my Flickr and Twitter accounts independently rather than having both my photos and my status updates inside Facebook. To me these are two distinctive task and to have them in separate browser tabs feels more natural. I'm afraid the notion of wave just got to many concepts thrown into. I would say that it's just to early to tell. Perhaps when I try it out it will replace everything else.
- greyboy 17y ago
  I agree with you. I like the separation. Of course, I'm probably an outlier. I don't use Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, RSS readers, Flickr, etc.