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>> "I think people who think Google Wave doesn't get it will be eating their words later, much like those who thought the same thing about the iPod (most of the

by axod 17y ago

>> "I think people who think Google Wave doesn't get it will be eating their words later, much like those who thought the same thing about the iPod (most of the geek communities turned their nose up at that too)." I'd somewhat bet the opposite. Geeks will be raving about wave and how it's realtime, XMPP federated, technically impressive etc etc, whilst the average person on the street will have no clue what it does and why they need it.

icey 17y ago
So the question is whether or not it remains a niche tool like RSS (which is to say only used by the technically savvy) or does it get abstracted into a transparent technology and used as a leverage tool like AJAX?
- Teulon 17y ago
  Hasn't the point always been for 'wave' to become a transparent technology? Google has their interface, but anyone can create one or just put up a different Wave server.
- steve19 17y ago
  I don't think RSS is a niche. What major email client does not have RSS integration? What major websites do not offer RSS feeds?
  - icey 17y ago
    I don't know about you, but the only people I know who actually use RSS are more technically advanced than 90% of the internet users I meet.
    - rooshdi 17y ago
      RSS is too complicated and constrained for the "average joe" on the street, which is why most "non-techies" I know just Google wherever they want to surf. Google speaks a language most people understand, while RSS still sounds like useless jibber jabber to these casual users.
- davidalln 17y ago
  40 years ago I'm sure email seemed like a "niche tool" used by only the technical savvy. I'm not saying that Wave will replace (or even that it should replace) email, but I do think that, especially as a younger, more technically savvy generation grows up (I'd gander that less than 10% of the students at my high school don't actively use Facebook), and as that younger generation enters the workforce, technologies like this will rise up and become a popular standard. Whether or not it will be Wave remains to be seen.
swombat 17y ago
Haven't you noticed though? It's precisely all the geeks who don't see the point of it. That's practically a success factor for this kind of technology, I'd say. The average geek is equipped with many methods of communication and collaboration... So of course this just seems like a marginal improvement. The average normal person, though, uses mostly email, and so will find this client exceptionally useful. The average person will just see (perhaps not even explicitly) that it makes it easier to add people to ongoing email conversations, and that it's easy to attach files to the conversation, and that it's easier to branch off sub-conversations, etc.
- axod 17y ago
  >> "Haven't you noticed though? It's precisely all the geeks who don't see the point of it. That's practically a success factor for this kind of technology, I'd say." So how does the average person find out about wave - let alone learn all the terminology, how to use it, etc etc. We're only hearing the geeks feedback so far, because the rest of the world doesn't know/care it exists. I'd be interested if you have some examples of communication forms that geeks didn't start using first - email,sms,twitter, were all pretty geek lead... I think the average person won't see how this solves any problems they have - facebook,twitter,email,sms all work pretty well for communication. I can see your point about teams working together - business collaboration - I can see it making some inroads there. Lots of the things I hear wave does are technically fun, but in practice, horrible design choices - showing text as people type it was the norm 20 years ago. Since then, we've pretty much all agreed it's irritating and not really useful.
  - roc 17y ago
    "So how does the average person find out about wave" Google replaces GMail's plumbing with Wave and the inherent abilities of Wave are introduced as GMail features. Robots, conversation splitting, collaboration, etc. It's the only sane way to approach it, really. And I have no idea why people keep harping on live typing. Google announced that there was going to be a way to turn it off about 5 minutes after they pulled the drape off Wave itself. It's almost certainly a feature destined for the dustbin. As such, it's an utter red herring. Complaining about it is perhaps more pointless than the "it's too complicated" meme.
DomesticMouse 17y ago
I'm seeing more interest in my Wave user group from business folks than geeks. Kinda the opposite to what I expected.

by axod 17y ago

icey 17y ago

So the question is whether or not it remains a niche tool like RSS (which is to say only used by the technically savvy) or does it get abstracted into a transparent technology and used as a leverage tool like AJAX?

Teulon 17y ago
Hasn't the point always been for 'wave' to become a transparent technology? Google has their interface, but anyone can create one or just put up a different Wave server.
steve19 17y ago
I don't think RSS is a niche. What major email client does not have RSS integration? What major websites do not offer RSS feeds?
- icey 17y ago
  I don't know about you, but the only people I know who actually use RSS are more technically advanced than 90% of the internet users I meet.
  - rooshdi 17y ago
    RSS is too complicated and constrained for the "average joe" on the street, which is why most "non-techies" I know just Google wherever they want to surf. Google speaks a language most people understand, while RSS still sounds like useless jibber jabber to these casual users.
davidalln 17y ago
40 years ago I'm sure email seemed like a "niche tool" used by only the technical savvy. I'm not saying that Wave will replace (or even that it should replace) email, but I do think that, especially as a younger, more technically savvy generation grows up (I'd gander that less than 10% of the students at my high school don't actively use Facebook), and as that younger generation enters the workforce, technologies like this will rise up and become a popular standard. Whether or not it will be Wave remains to be seen.

swombat 17y ago

Haven't you noticed though? It's precisely all the geeks who don't see the point of it. That's practically a success factor for this kind of technology, I'd say. The average geek is equipped with many methods of communication and collaboration... So of course this just seems like a marginal improvement. The average normal person, though, uses mostly email, and so will find this client exceptionally useful. The average person will just see (perhaps not even explicitly) that it makes it easier to add people to ongoing email conversations, and that it's easy to attach files to the conversation, and that it's easier to branch off sub-conversations, etc.

axod 17y ago
>> "Haven't you noticed though? It's precisely all the geeks who don't see the point of it. That's practically a success factor for this kind of technology, I'd say." So how does the average person find out about wave - let alone learn all the terminology, how to use it, etc etc. We're only hearing the geeks feedback so far, because the rest of the world doesn't know/care it exists. I'd be interested if you have some examples of communication forms that geeks didn't start using first - email,sms,twitter, were all pretty geek lead... I think the average person won't see how this solves any problems they have - facebook,twitter,email,sms all work pretty well for communication. I can see your point about teams working together - business collaboration - I can see it making some inroads there. Lots of the things I hear wave does are technically fun, but in practice, horrible design choices - showing text as people type it was the norm 20 years ago. Since then, we've pretty much all agreed it's irritating and not really useful.
- roc 17y ago
  "So how does the average person find out about wave" Google replaces GMail's plumbing with Wave and the inherent abilities of Wave are introduced as GMail features. Robots, conversation splitting, collaboration, etc. It's the only sane way to approach it, really. And I have no idea why people keep harping on live typing. Google announced that there was going to be a way to turn it off about 5 minutes after they pulled the drape off Wave itself. It's almost certainly a feature destined for the dustbin. As such, it's an utter red herring. Complaining about it is perhaps more pointless than the "it's too complicated" meme.

DomesticMouse 17y ago

I'm seeing more interest in my Wave user group from business folks than geeks. Kinda the opposite to what I expected.