6 ms·

Google Wave's Phased Beta is Disappointing

40 points by amitu 17y ago

onewland 17y ago
Agreed. The #1 goal of a platform is adoption. Maybe I'm reading Google Wave wrong, but it does seem to be a platform. So unless you're adjusting for scale, why would you do anything at all to slow adoption? In fact, Twitter's failures to increase capacity didn't seem to hurt it as much as not making it completely open would have.
- stevejohnson 17y ago
  Because it's not really ready for public consumption. It's still pretty buggy. To roll out now would make all those flaws public.
  - Semiapies 17y ago
    Indeed - it's not a beta, it's a "preview". Really, it's a late alpha.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
wmf 17y ago
Your complaint seems to be that few people are logged on at any one time, but that's not necessary to use Wave. It isn't a very good IM system anyway, so it's pointless to try to use it that way. http://danieltenner.com/posts/0012-google-wave.html http://danieltenner.com/posts/0012-google-wave.html
- sp332 17y ago
  There are relatively few people who have logged in to Google Wave ever, which is just dumb for a product that relies so heavily on network effects to be attractive.
  - wmf 17y ago
    Wave's invitation system is definitely flawed (I need invites for my whole team, not just myself), but IMO amitu is criticizing Wave for the wrong reason.
    - stumm 17y ago
      I believe they tried to get around this problem by giving each person 10 invites. Some people sold them, other people invited their friend or team which made it more useful.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - malbiniak 17y ago
      Yeah, I was given 20 nominations, and decided to pass them to most of my team, then realized our team is way too big :) I'm also a little surprised by the author's criticism of having no one logged on at the same time. In our limited application of it, the value is not exclusively in real time communication, but in a better organized (non-linear) communication timeline.
- crux 17y ago
  The equivalent to his complaint would be that nobody was looking at their mail client at the very moment that he sent them an email. Luckily. you don't have to know anything about how Google Wave works in order to declare it a failure!
wavesplash 17y ago
The deeper message "invites should go out to social circles" is spot on. Gmail's rollout policy worked because our network was already accessible (via other email providers). For something inherently social without a pre-seeded network like wave, it only makes sense to roll it out to social clusters.
- seldo 17y ago
  Can you think of a better mechanism for seeding a finite number of slots to social clusters than giving everybody X invites to share? From what I hear, the people at the start of the chain have nearly all of their friends on Wave, while the people at the edges (us) have only 10 or so at the moment. As more invites go out the system will get more useful for us Although I have many questions as to the actual utility of wave, I don't think the invitation mechanism is really at fault.
  - wmf 17y ago
    There was some confusion since Gmail invites take effect immediately but Wave invites just put people on a waiting list; this turned out to be not as bad as it sounds since apparently the waiting list is moving pretty fast. Even a few days delay to get your team on Wave is disappointing some people, though.
j_b_f 17y ago
I know we've been over this a million times before, but the whole "FAIL" thing really turns me off. I actually agree with the points but had to force myself to click the link because I immediately assumed the OP was a linkbating troll.
- Tichy 17y ago
  I like #fail, it is short and poignant.
Tichy 17y ago
I am always put off by the "limited supply" approach of Google. Disclaimer: I did not get a Wave invite, maybe because I did not even apply, but still. So they seem to think I am not cool enough for their product. Guess what, I don't want to kneel down and beg for an invite. I'll look for other stuff to do instead.
- andreyf 17y ago
  How is taking 30 seconds to fill out a form anything like "kneel down and beg"?
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I meant in general, that would be the case where you fill out the form and don't get an invite. Then you would go to beg on Twitter or ebay. Of course I am not complaining that I didn't get an invite without even applying. Still, asking a woman "would you like to sleep with me" also only takes 5 seconds, but there is a lot of dignity to lose if she says no.
    - codexon 17y ago
      I don't think you would lose any dignity by asking for a Wave invite.
      - Tichy 17y ago
        I don't see how what you think is relevant to how I feel about it. Maybe it really is only the beta scarcity, but then perhaps they could sell it better. Ever since Orkut I just assume it is a scheme to make it look cool.
- yurisagalov 17y ago
  While I do agree that it certainly helps when demand is higher than supply in terms of customer interest, this is certainly not the main reason for the Google Wave invite/nomination system. I just got my invite today, and having used it extensively for a few hours, I can tell you a few things for certain: It is quite buggy, and still feels QUITE sluggish. Thus, it is in their interest to open this up to "early adopters" before the main population since they are more willing to tolerate these bugs. Furthermore, from following some of their twitter posts/blog posts, it seems like they are still struggling with scaling the system itself, contributing in the slow down in approving invites/"nominations" (it took my nomination 4 days to get approved, I don't think they're doing it to frustrate me once I've been invited ;)
yurisagalov 17y ago
To be honest, I am not at all surprised at the frustration most people are seeing with the Google Wave invite system. What I am surprised, is that so many people did not seem to expect it. What people are forgetting is that this system is a closed proprietary system, unlike GMail. Yes, invites to GMail were scarce, and if I remember correctly even sold for hundreds of dollars on ebay. The difference between GMail and Google Wave (GWave? yes/no? ;) is that when you were invited to gmail, you were invited to use a new "interface" of an existing and mature protocol - email. You didn't have to wait to "show off" your gmail account to your friends, you simply had to send them an email. Google Wave requires mass adoption of something that is inherently closed (unless they open this protocol to other companies) and so will suffer from a slower adoption rate, and as a consequence, a lower utility rate, even if the invite system ceases to exist at all. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is an issue. Many of my friends who got invites seem to think that Google Wave is going to revolutionize _chat_, but I don't think this was ever the claim. It may yet revolutionize collaboration, but in order to collaborate effectively you don't need to just sit there and wait for people to log on -- start a wave, invite some friends, and watch it evolve. edit: to follow up on my 'non issue' comment. My point is that for Google Wave to be useful, only those who wish to collaborate together will really need to adopt it, not your entire google contact list. If a company signs up their domain for google wave, you can be almost certain that they will make much better use of it than I will with my group of friends on an individual level
- grhino 17y ago
  The beta is a closed proprietary system, but it won't always be that way. Google created a proprietary implementation of an open protocol and has created an open source client/server implementation. Check out http://www.waveprotocol.org/ http://www.waveprotocol.org/ It's my understanding that you could implement your own wave server which could then interoperate with Google's wave server. The "Google Wave" web client that's in beta now may always be a proprietary item, but it's my understanding that you could create your own wave client as well.
  - yurisagalov 17y ago
    Thanks for the link. This actually makes quite a bit of sense both in the way google has done business in the past -- with Chrome and even the Google Chat server, and of course from an adoption point of view.
c3o 17y ago
I agree that the invite process is all wrong, but for a different reason. Google should be encouraging users to invite others for a practical purpose, ie working on a project together. Having a specific purpose in mind when being invited to Wave would greatly help people understand and evaluate the usefulness for collaboration. Instead, people just clamor for invites to try out the hyped new thing by Google rather than to fulfill any real need they have, and then click around randomly, use Wave like a chat, and get annoyed when "nobody's online". They're setting people up for disillusionment and disappointment this way.
jsz0 17y ago
Thank you for removing the "FAIL" non-sense from the title. So sick of that meme.
- rortian 17y ago
  I am definitely sick of the word 'meme'.
crux 17y ago
Google Wave is not in beta. It's in public preview. Right now they're not interested in being useful to you or any other user; they're still building and designing the damn thing. The only reason they let you on is so they have a bunch of new user activity to process. The very fact that people are complaining that it's disappointing means that Google is doing just fine. It might be disappointing to you, the eager early adopter, but it's not stupid on their part. The very fact that you want to have all your friends come use it (I do too) means that whenever Google does decide to open the tap, they will have all the users they want. The network effect is crucial for getting a new communications tool off the ground. And as soon as Google wants to take advantage of the network effect, they'll give you and me some more invitations and I assure you, we won't have any problem finding folks to accept. In the meantime, we're still playing in Google's sandbox. EDIT: Incidentally, as further evidence of the fact that Google is leveraging exactly as much of the network effect as they feel like leveraging: the thing it does where anybody in your GMail contacts is automatically added to your Google Wave contact list is fuckin' brilliant. It's a great way to encourage use, by making sure that as many people as I'm likely to be interested in using Wave with are directly accessible to be contacted, without my even having to say, 'So, did you get a Google Wave invite? Let me know when you're in and we'll chat!'
- pavs 17y ago
  Thanks for saying it the way it is. Wave is on "Preview", meaning its definitely NOT beta or even Alpha. What "preview" basically means that "we are building a system and we want live testers as we scale and add features", they are not "bug fixing", they are "implementing features" on live users. Wave users are viewing the changes and features added live, hence "preview".
  - NikkiA 17y ago
    However, 'beta' IS the traditional word for this situation, it's just that Google (principally) has butchered and mutated the meaning of beta over the last few years, to the point where people view 'beta' as meaning 'open to all, but no guarantees' (except when it comes to video game testing, there the traditional meaning of beta stands).
zandorg 17y ago
I got a cheap invite off eBay (about $4.50) so I could get stuck in with the D&D side of things. So far, I'm still confused, having never played a D&D, but slowly getting there.

40 points by amitu 17y ago

Agreed. The #1 goal of a platform is adoption. Maybe I'm reading Google Wave wrong, but it does seem to be a platform. So unless you're adjusting for scale, why would you do anything at all to slow adoption? In fact, Twitter's failures to increase capacity didn't seem to hurt it as much as not making it completely open would have.

stevejohnson 17y ago
Because it's not really ready for public consumption. It's still pretty buggy. To roll out now would make all those flaws public.
- Semiapies 17y ago
  Indeed - it's not a beta, it's a "preview". Really, it's a late alpha.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

wmf 17y ago

Your complaint seems to be that few people are logged on at any one time, but that's not necessary to use Wave. It isn't a very good IM system anyway, so it's pointless to try to use it that way. http://danieltenner.com/posts/0012-google-wave.html http://danieltenner.com/posts/0012-google-wave.html

sp332 17y ago
There are relatively few people who have logged in to Google Wave ever, which is just dumb for a product that relies so heavily on network effects to be attractive.
- wmf 17y ago
  Wave's invitation system is definitely flawed (I need invites for my whole team, not just myself), but IMO amitu is criticizing Wave for the wrong reason.
  - stumm 17y ago
    I believe they tried to get around this problem by giving each person 10 invites. Some people sold them, other people invited their friend or team which made it more useful.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - malbiniak 17y ago
    Yeah, I was given 20 nominations, and decided to pass them to most of my team, then realized our team is way too big :) I'm also a little surprised by the author's criticism of having no one logged on at the same time. In our limited application of it, the value is not exclusively in real time communication, but in a better organized (non-linear) communication timeline.
crux 17y ago
The equivalent to his complaint would be that nobody was looking at their mail client at the very moment that he sent them an email. Luckily. you don't have to know anything about how Google Wave works in order to declare it a failure!

wavesplash 17y ago

The deeper message "invites should go out to social circles" is spot on. Gmail's rollout policy worked because our network was already accessible (via other email providers). For something inherently social without a pre-seeded network like wave, it only makes sense to roll it out to social clusters.

seldo 17y ago
Can you think of a better mechanism for seeding a finite number of slots to social clusters than giving everybody X invites to share? From what I hear, the people at the start of the chain have nearly all of their friends on Wave, while the people at the edges (us) have only 10 or so at the moment. As more invites go out the system will get more useful for us Although I have many questions as to the actual utility of wave, I don't think the invitation mechanism is really at fault.
- wmf 17y ago
  There was some confusion since Gmail invites take effect immediately but Wave invites just put people on a waiting list; this turned out to be not as bad as it sounds since apparently the waiting list is moving pretty fast. Even a few days delay to get your team on Wave is disappointing some people, though.

j_b_f 17y ago

I know we've been over this a million times before, but the whole "FAIL" thing really turns me off. I actually agree with the points but had to force myself to click the link because I immediately assumed the OP was a linkbating troll.

Tichy 17y ago
I like #fail, it is short and poignant.

Tichy 17y ago

I am always put off by the "limited supply" approach of Google. Disclaimer: I did not get a Wave invite, maybe because I did not even apply, but still. So they seem to think I am not cool enough for their product. Guess what, I don't want to kneel down and beg for an invite. I'll look for other stuff to do instead.

andreyf 17y ago
How is taking 30 seconds to fill out a form anything like "kneel down and beg"?
- Tichy 17y ago
  I meant in general, that would be the case where you fill out the form and don't get an invite. Then you would go to beg on Twitter or ebay. Of course I am not complaining that I didn't get an invite without even applying. Still, asking a woman "would you like to sleep with me" also only takes 5 seconds, but there is a lot of dignity to lose if she says no.
  - codexon 17y ago
    I don't think you would lose any dignity by asking for a Wave invite.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      I don't see how what you think is relevant to how I feel about it. Maybe it really is only the beta scarcity, but then perhaps they could sell it better. Ever since Orkut I just assume it is a scheme to make it look cool.
yurisagalov 17y ago
While I do agree that it certainly helps when demand is higher than supply in terms of customer interest, this is certainly not the main reason for the Google Wave invite/nomination system. I just got my invite today, and having used it extensively for a few hours, I can tell you a few things for certain: It is quite buggy, and still feels QUITE sluggish. Thus, it is in their interest to open this up to "early adopters" before the main population since they are more willing to tolerate these bugs. Furthermore, from following some of their twitter posts/blog posts, it seems like they are still struggling with scaling the system itself, contributing in the slow down in approving invites/"nominations" (it took my nomination 4 days to get approved, I don't think they're doing it to frustrate me once I've been invited ;)

yurisagalov 17y ago

To be honest, I am not at all surprised at the frustration most people are seeing with the Google Wave invite system. What I am surprised, is that so many people did not seem to expect it. What people are forgetting is that this system is a closed proprietary system, unlike GMail. Yes, invites to GMail were scarce, and if I remember correctly even sold for hundreds of dollars on ebay. The difference between GMail and Google Wave (GWave? yes/no? ;) is that when you were invited to gmail, you were invited to use a new "interface" of an existing and mature protocol - email. You didn't have to wait to "show off" your gmail account to your friends, you simply had to send them an email. Google Wave requires mass adoption of something that is inherently closed (unless they open this protocol to other companies) and so will suffer from a slower adoption rate, and as a consequence, a lower utility rate, even if the invite system ceases to exist at all. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is an issue. Many of my friends who got invites seem to think that Google Wave is going to revolutionize _chat_, but I don't think this was ever the claim. It may yet revolutionize collaboration, but in order to collaborate effectively you don't need to just sit there and wait for people to log on -- start a wave, invite some friends, and watch it evolve. edit: to follow up on my 'non issue' comment. My point is that for Google Wave to be useful, only those who wish to collaborate together will really need to adopt it, not your entire google contact list. If a company signs up their domain for google wave, you can be almost certain that they will make much better use of it than I will with my group of friends on an individual level

grhino 17y ago
The beta is a closed proprietary system, but it won't always be that way. Google created a proprietary implementation of an open protocol and has created an open source client/server implementation. Check out http://www.waveprotocol.org/ http://www.waveprotocol.org/ It's my understanding that you could implement your own wave server which could then interoperate with Google's wave server. The "Google Wave" web client that's in beta now may always be a proprietary item, but it's my understanding that you could create your own wave client as well.
- yurisagalov 17y ago
  Thanks for the link. This actually makes quite a bit of sense both in the way google has done business in the past -- with Chrome and even the Google Chat server, and of course from an adoption point of view.

c3o 17y ago

I agree that the invite process is all wrong, but for a different reason. Google should be encouraging users to invite others for a practical purpose, ie working on a project together. Having a specific purpose in mind when being invited to Wave would greatly help people understand and evaluate the usefulness for collaboration. Instead, people just clamor for invites to try out the hyped new thing by Google rather than to fulfill any real need they have, and then click around randomly, use Wave like a chat, and get annoyed when "nobody's online". They're setting people up for disillusionment and disappointment this way.

jsz0 17y ago

Thank you for removing the "FAIL" non-sense from the title. So sick of that meme.

rortian 17y ago
I am definitely sick of the word 'meme'.

crux 17y ago

Google Wave is not in beta. It's in public preview. Right now they're not interested in being useful to you or any other user; they're still building and designing the damn thing. The only reason they let you on is so they have a bunch of new user activity to process. The very fact that people are complaining that it's disappointing means that Google is doing just fine. It might be disappointing to you, the eager early adopter, but it's not stupid on their part. The very fact that you want to have all your friends come use it (I do too) means that whenever Google does decide to open the tap, they will have all the users they want. The network effect is crucial for getting a new communications tool off the ground. And as soon as Google wants to take advantage of the network effect, they'll give you and me some more invitations and I assure you, we won't have any problem finding folks to accept. In the meantime, we're still playing in Google's sandbox. EDIT: Incidentally, as further evidence of the fact that Google is leveraging exactly as much of the network effect as they feel like leveraging: the thing it does where anybody in your GMail contacts is automatically added to your Google Wave contact list is fuckin' brilliant. It's a great way to encourage use, by making sure that as many people as I'm likely to be interested in using Wave with are directly accessible to be contacted, without my even having to say, 'So, did you get a Google Wave invite? Let me know when you're in and we'll chat!'

pavs 17y ago
Thanks for saying it the way it is. Wave is on "Preview", meaning its definitely NOT beta or even Alpha. What "preview" basically means that "we are building a system and we want live testers as we scale and add features", they are not "bug fixing", they are "implementing features" on live users. Wave users are viewing the changes and features added live, hence "preview".
- NikkiA 17y ago
  However, 'beta' IS the traditional word for this situation, it's just that Google (principally) has butchered and mutated the meaning of beta over the last few years, to the point where people view 'beta' as meaning 'open to all, but no guarantees' (except when it comes to video game testing, there the traditional meaning of beta stands).

zandorg 17y ago

I got a cheap invite off eBay (about $4.50) so I could get stuck in with the D&D side of things. So far, I'm still confused, having never played a D&D, but slowly getting there.