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Customer: <Initiates Wave with ACME Customer Service>
ACME-CS: "Hello, how may I help you?"
Customer: "I placed my order over the phone a week ago but haven't got it yet."
ACME-CS: <Inserts Order Location Widget> "I've added our Order Locator widget, please help me find your order"
Customer: <Looking by name, finds nothing. Tries phone number; found.> "Okay, found it"
Customer: <Sees that name was misspelled. Fixed name misspelling.> "Oh, and I just fixed my name misspelling."
ACME-CS: "Alright, let's check this out. Hmm, looks like your name misspelling was the holdup. But let me go ahead and run your credit. Can you please verify some info for me first?" <Inserts Branded Credit Verification Widget>
Customer: "Sure" <Types in SSN, Zip Code, Mother's Maiden Name, presses 'Verify' button> "Ok"
ACME-CS: "Great, thanks for verifying. Okay, that will be $99.95; is that correct?"
Customer: "No, I your sales rep offered me a $20 discount"
ACME-CS: "Okay, let me check to see if Mary is available...:" <Adds Mary the ACME-Sales person to the Wave>
ACME-CS: "Hi Mary, I just wanted to verify John Q Customer here's $20 discount."
ACME-Sales: "Let me check ... Yes! I offered him $20 off as a thanks for this blog post about ACME that he told me about. But I honestly forgot to include it in the notes, I'm really sorry."
ACME-CS: "Great! No problem, and thanks Mary."
ACME-Sales: "John, thanks again for your support."
Customer: "You're welcome, I understand, and thanks for helping me out with that discount."
ACME-CS: "Okay, great. Will this still be on the same credit card?"
Customer: "Actually, can we do a purchase order? Number 12345 from EMCA Corp"
ACME-CS: "Ok. Hmmm, seems to be a credit hold. Let me bring in our credit department. Hold a second please..."
ACME-Credit: "Yes?"
ACME-CS: "EMCA Corp wants a PO approved for $100 but there is a hold."
ACME-Credit: "Just a moment... Yes, it seems we had some mail returned."
Customer: "Oops, yes we moved last month."
ACME-Credit: "Okay" <Inserts Address Update Widget> "Just type in your new address"
Customer: <Types in address> "Done."
ACME-Credit: "Okay, looks good. You are approved"
Customer: "Thanks."
ACME-CS: "Alrighty now. Would you still like this shipped UPS Ground?"
Customer: "No, I need ASAP."
ACME-CS: "Okay" <Inserts Shipping Widget> "Just select the shipping you'd like and we'll wave the extra charges."
Customer: "Great!" <Selects Shipping Option> "Done!"
AMCE-CS: "Alright, it'll ship today and you should have tomorrow before 10am. Can I help you with anything else?"
Customer: "Nope, that's all."
ACME-CS: "Great." <Inserts Order Tracking BOT> "Be sure to keep this Wave around until after you get your delivery. You'll be able to track the package in this wave and if you need to contact us back in customer service we'll have your entire discussion available to bring others up to speed on your order."
Customer: "Perfect, I love you guys!"
AMCE-CS: "And we appreciate your support. Thanks for shopping at ACME. Bye now."
Customer: "ttyl"
1. The "distracting" real-time updates cannot be turned off, but they can be filtered easily. I'm currently viewing "Public Waves", a custom search that shows all public waves, so definitely the updates come every few seconds. However, if I switch to "By Me", there a only a few waves in my stream so the updates come less often. So, to minimize distraction, create a custom search that limits your stream to important waves.
2. The social networking aspect of Wave definitely needs improvement, but I can appreciate the reasoning behind the current set-up. Just like Twitter, Wave's social networking is less personal than Facebook, but allows easier discovery of people & topics that may be of interest to a user. I'm sure Google will allow filtering your stream to view waves with people who are added to your Contacts, which will also help solve the 1st problem. Even Twitter doesn't have groups yet, so we should give Google time to implement this properly.
3. The lack of an easy access to deleting a Wave is definitely a valid criticism. I've been using Wave on a slow connection, so I'm not really sure if dragging the Wave to the Trash works consistently right now, but that's what I did to some of my drafts. A "Move to Trash" button would be the best option, though with the current lack of granular access rights control, this might cause even more problems.
4. BCC is an feature that will not work in Wave, since the paradigm is different. All a Wave's participants are displayed on the top, so if you add your boss to the Wave, he should be able to see it, and people will know that he sees it. If you want to send him a private message, you use "Private reply".
5. As I said, this is an alpha release, so Docs integration is not implemented yet. Even Gmail is not integrated yet, and I think that will come first. Even though Wave is publicly available, it's definitely still in a sandbox, just bigger.
6. Wave's scalability is definitely a valid concern, but I believe that Google will improve this as they observe the usage patterns of the community. As it is, I have no issues with speed, though Wave definitely works best on Chrome, and there are noticeable differences when I try Wave on Safari or Firefox.
7. Like I said, this is a alpha release, so the number of extensions is still small. As the user & developer communities grow, the number of extensions will increase. Just give it time, this is the part of Wave that I'm most excited about.
8. Just like e-mail, people can send you messages easily. That's why there's a "Spam" button. You can't block people directly right now, but that can be added in a future release.
9. The easiest way to share a wave is to add a participant to a wave from your contacts; that's even easier than sending a link through e-mail. Waves are definitely open to other Wave users at the moment because Wave is on a limited public preview. That's also why the only way to access Wave is through the Wave website, the APIs are still in early development since this a preview release. The Wave Embed API is available though, so that might help some fellow Wavers with sharing certain waves with the public.
So, is Wave ready for the mainstream? Nope. Will I continue using Wave? Definitely. I see the potential for this platform, and I want to see it improve. So, go ahead & criticize Wave, but don't write it off until it's been given some time to grow.
In the comments, you've repeatedly defended this by pointing out that Gmail was more polished when it was released to the public. This analogy fails on a few accounts. First, Google's terminology for the developmental stage of Wave is different than Gmail's when it was released. Gmail was called a beta and Wave is being called a dev build. They're not advertising the same quality, so one shouldn't expect it.
Second, as others have pointed out, Gmail was essentially a new shell for a previously existing protocol. Part of the reason they're inviting so many people to what is essentially a half-cooked product is that it is not just the shell that they are testing...they're also testing the underlying protocol.
Third, part of their announcement and part of the reason that they're releasing it at such an early stage is the federated element. Obviously, there isn't another wave provider because Google only recently released it as a dev build, but part of the idea was so that others might take it up and make it a standard
Essentially, this is a much different product release than Gmail and thus using Gmail as the comparison point is an opening for poor analysis.
That said, I think it's welcome to see a negative review to get a good grasp of where this is going.
The real-time web needs scalabale middleware. We have pull based solutions that are unlikely to scale effeciently. We also have COMET, HTML 5 browser as a server, XMPP and even AMQP. The push protocol of the future is going to be important to the real-time web. We've had pub/sub technology in the Enterprise for years, but we haven't seen anything that can scale to the unmanaged world of the internet.
Wave the application is an interesting concept, but I understand the negative feedback. If you want to fix email then the number one issue is effective triarge. This means added metadata. Look at the meeting requests, voting button emails and exchange forms. If you can add more intent to message interaction then the platform can tailor the user experience accordingly. The problem with email is that it only models communication at the most basic level.
1. Live Chat - distraction as you can see typing.
You can't turn this off at the moment but I think that is coming. It is certainly coming to stop other people seeing your typing. This would be a minor change in the scheme of things to have a button to enable the typing to show up before the done button was pressed. Seems like a weak start to the list. Also I disagree that it lowers productivity. Have you used Wave yet with anyone who is offline? Then it reverts to feeling much more like email. People trying out Wave are desperate to see the new "cool stuff" and are going for both online realtime chatting. That is just one thing that Wave can do.
2. Social Networking features - No bio. No real names. No real way to manage them and put them into groups.
These seem incredibly minor to me. All of these can be added without too much trouble. I don't personally think that Wave is aiming to be like the other social networks. The sort of idea is much more like... email wasn't good enough for sharing things between people... so people moved to social networks which are much more immersive and interactive and you can share things better than email... but social networks are closed off and don't talk to each other... it would actually better if email was just better so we didn't need all of the different social networks... Wave is this upgrade.
3. Can't delete stuff yet.
Again - fair enough it is a bug. I'm sure they'll fix this. This is not a deal breaker is it.
4. No BCC Support.
I'm not sure what the equivalent is here. Maybe they will have people you can add who have read only rights or something. But I think for the moment it's best just to add the person to the Wave. It should be obvious from the content they are just observing. With better contact management / groups there might be a way to say - "make public to group" so all of them can see it (but are not necessarily part of it). Like the public waves now but more specific (i.e. not everyone, say just your company).
5. No docs / spreadsheet integration.
I'm sure integration will come through gadgets / robots. The APIs are there.
6. It's slow.
First good criticism in my eyes. It is slow. Not really too valid to say imagine how slow it will be when there are loads more people on it as Google clearly knows more than anyone about scaling. Also not relevant as it is the protocol that you perhaps need to worry about rather than the specific service. Soon people on Google Wave could be talking to Zoho Wave, Yahoo Wave etc.
7. There isn't a store for robots / gadgets.
There actually is a directory of the best gadgets on Google's website. A selection of stuff built during the developer preview.
8. I don't really understand this point. It's like saying email doesn't work because people can email you without getting permission first. If they know your address they can get in touch with you - same as with email. You are famous so your experience might be somewhat different.
9. Waves only open to wave users.
Waves can be published - so can be open to everyone. This bit of what you said totally misses the mark:
"Wave seems like it wants lockin. IE, to really get a lot out of Wave you have to also use Wave all day long. Email isn’t like that. You can use any email client and you have lots of choices. Don’t like Gmail? Use Hotmail. Don’t like Hotmail? Use Yahoo mail. Don’t like those? Get your own pop server and do it yourself. Etc etc. Now try to do that with Wave. Go ahead, I’ll wait."
You will be able to do this with Wave. You can't right now - the federation isn't turned on yet and there are no competing products. The tech is all open though and Google are encouraging this openness. Wave doesn't have the ecosystem around it yet because it is early days. It is all being worked on - you'll have to be patient but yes you can set up your own wave server. Happy?
Also please note that email has the same lock in situation. You notice you can only send emails to email users? Yes that just happens to be pretty much everyone with an internet connection but this wasn't always the case. You are not giving Wave a chance. They plan to make it work with email too.
---
To summarise - you really need to hold back with all the arguments that Wave isn't up to anything. We don't know yet if it will catch on. No one can say. We can say though that this is the first attempt to reinvent email in an open way (that I'm aware of) and I hope that it does catch on. If the speed can be worked on I think everything else will follow. I think you might find that you can be more productive on Wave than you ever have on email/service X/Y/Z that are all better than Wave. Think about the friction that you remove by consolidation to one service rather than across numerous. Different accounts for you to maintain and for your client to have. You have to say - What's your Skype name? etc.
Wave is new and it's different. We're all learning as we go. We're not going to be experts immediately. I know you are bleeding edge stuff Robert but it is going to take time before we understand how to use this thing or if it's useful. We can't make this on a snap basis. And it's not going to be because of one minor UI defect.
I know that for developers it is very cool. In both of my articles I give it that, and SocialWok shows the way here. It'll be interesting to see what you do with it.
This is exactly why it isn't like Gmail. With Gmail end users got the benefit immediately, even in early days. Here we have to wait for third-party developers to do something interesting with it. It's not ready for mass market without that added innovation and I'm not sure it will ever show up for the mass market. We'll see.
Edit: Here's some URLs to the guy who made it and the story of the video.
http://www.epipheostudios.com/blog/?p=16
http://twitter.com/jonpdx
Google's probably marketing this wrong. I think this is the wrong time to
market it as such - eventually, maybe, but not now. Right now we need to
open it up to the public, say, "hey, here it is, now play with it, figure
out what it is, and show us what you've built with it", rather than assuming
ahead of time what it is.
As things stand now I estimate gwave to have less than a tenth of the functionality it will have in a years time. Apps are in their infancy and there's so much more Google plans to improve already.
Why are you so quick to smack down something that hasn't even been released to the public yet? Sure there may be some tools that do some of the jobs that gwave does but are they free? Do they all work together in the same UI?
I'm quite surprised at the stance you've taken particularly as you are considered one of the poster boys for early adoption. I've followed your lead more than once. But, respectfully, I just think your wrong this time.
Have you seen some of the apps and bots? Some of those things are wicked sweet. They're just tinker toys compared to what's coming. This is truly just the very tippy tippy top of the iceberg.
IMHO
I'm not always going to praise something just because it's new and geeky. You misunderstood that about me.
It's OK to disagree! We'll see where it goes.
Almost as soon as I posted the blip it was hijacked, my original post and comments following it were deleted. The Wave is now titled "Wave's sexiest ladies" and is just filled with spam.
It's sad that even with such limited access it's becoming degrading.
Watch the replay here: https://wave.google.com/wave/?pli=1#restored:wa...
But the terror in the UI is the "block" or "message". Instead of simply clicking in a "block" in order to edit (as I do in a document), I have to double click, then say "edit" in a popup, then I'm "modally" in that block.
Modal editors went out with vi.
There are shared-document whiteboards out there - etherpad mentioned, 37signals has writeboard.
So it's bad for shared documents. It's bad as a shared chat. It's bad as email. It's something inbetween that manages to be the worst of all worlds.
I'd prefer if Google builds a better version of each of those things, than trying to replace all, with a confusing UI that does nothing right.
Wave is a new platform for the revolution for all the things on the Internet.
If Microsoft launched wave in the way Google did, most people wouldn't have enough social media space to tell the world how Microsoft failed. However since everybody has the perception that Google is a company that is not evil, most people are still trying to cheer regarding wave, claiming that it is just beta, that so much more is yet to come. It is a bit of the story about the emperor's new clothes :).
Given Microsoft's track record, if they launched Wave in the way Google has, it would fail. But Google is not Microsoft and the perception may be justified. After all, they are opening the protocol to competing service providers, and we may yet see Microsoft launch a wave service of their own (MSN Wave?, Hotwave?, Windows Live Wave?). The killer app for wave may not be a Google product after all.
With no more than 600,000 people using Wave right now it's simply too early to call it a failure or a success. But you don't have to bat 1000 to go to the World Series, and neither does Google have to please everyone in order for wave to become as ubiquitous as email and http (assuming ubiquity is the goal here). That won't happen if the problems people are having now are inherent in the wave protocol. But most of the gripes I've heard so far are due to the web based client and its lack of specific features. Those problems have solutions and those solutions don't necessary have to come from Google.
People "got" gmail intuitively because it was a better way of doing something familiar. The whole point of Wave is that it's a fundamentally different way of approaching online communication and collaboration, so there's going to be more of a learning curve than with early gmail.
About the last point I think wave is better than email : you can add to a wave a link to another wave (however it stays in wave), or you can embed or publish a wave (in the future anyone will be able to see these).
Finally since Google will opensource Wave, if it's successful, there will be other providers.
I agree, Robert -- which is why Friendfeed in realtime mode could never replace a real RSS aggregator for me.
U actually say that google wave is not good because it does not integrate with another google product Googe Docs and Spreadsheets... Don't you think that that will come VERY soon???!! if you had said MS office then I would understand your point of view because many people are addicted of MS office but google docs? I can bet with you that all google docs features will be integrated in wave in less than a year from now.
Bad social networking??!!! Again IT IS A EARLY BETA STAGE PRODUCT!!! Don't you think that google contacts, google connect, etc... will be integrated into the product? And with an open source protocol and open API's very soon others will integrate Twitter and facebook connect to it?
I would like to say that I still do not have a google wave account but your bad atitude towards the product that is trying to bring some sanity to email is a bit over the top.
When things are really world-changing, they don't start out with videos telling us how they're going to be world-changing. Twitter started out as a silly novelty. Facebook started out as something for college students. The Internet started out as a tool for the military and universities.
Google's great, but I don't think they've earned enough trust for me to instantly assume anything they release will change the world. I say we just let people play with it and see what ends up happening...
I'm curious whether you would find it to be a better method of collaboration than Google Wave, or having the same flaws.
Like I said, your criticisms are well taken, the one thing that is keeping me hopeful is we're still at least a few months out before this thing opens are refinements will be happening fast a furious right up to that point. When you get down to it, the only reason they probably let this last hundred thousand or so in was simply to stress test their back end and see how it was going to hold up.
Agree on point 2, there is poor support in Contacts, I wish I could put the bots, for example, into their own group. I've been told that you need to manage this in Google Contacts but I'd like this inside Google Wave (related issue to GReader).
Point 3, really? It's pretty clear, there is a trash button in both the panels, open a wave and you have the option to 'trash' any wave. Perhaps the terminology needs changing but the feature seems clear.
Point 4, BCCing could be done via 'pinging' but it's not quite what you're after. You can ping a user via the Contacts and it's like a DM and will appear as a small bar at the top of the Wave page. You can also ping inside a wave and it's a private message between you and that user (though I've not tried this yet).
I'm sure point 5 is just a matter of time.
For point 6 I've seen a bit of slowdown but not much (and I've been involved with some heavy wave discussions, particularly public waves). It appears very fast in Chrome at least. I gave up with Firefox but then that's just my Firefox. :-)
Agree on 7, these need tidying up so we have easier access to them. Same goes for the gadgets. I have to go search for the gadget I want to use, copy then paste it. I'd rather it be 'installed' and then accessible from a dropdown menu when I click the add gadget button.
And agree on point 8, yep there needs to be some noise control; for us and what we receiving and for the waves and who can do what, where and when.
Point 9, you can find the URL of the wave but opening up a new wave, dragging the wave you want the URL of into the new wave then right-clicking on the link and copying the URL. Yes, long winded and it needs to be easier and/or clearer.
I love to learn new words, but correct spelling helps.
For geeks like me, wasting time on cool new technologies is lots of fun.
This is exactly I was telling to some one after I stopped playing Farmville :P
free online web-based app for online collaboration.
http://freegooglewaveinvites.com/google-wave-in...
That is, if you're willing to pay 57 bucks!
For more details: http://colayer.com/MetalayerCom/MCH/1/concept/C...
Also visit http://colayer.com to experience the Colayer platform.
http://www.zenbe.com/shareflow
If there is, do you mind sharing your thoughts on wich service you think does the better job of the collaborative experience?
1. If you're not using it, use the amazing "Minimize" feature. That's why you can minimize the inbox and other waves. If you don't need to be looking at it while you're working, then don't. How hard is that?
2. Social networking is hardly related to productivity. There actually is group functionality in Wave, but it's currently in its infancy, so expect to see more on that over the coming weeks.
3. When everyone is removed from the wave, it goes into the trash by itself. Again, this is a problem how?
4. BCC was never a desirable feature in email. It simply forwards an email that you've already sent to others.
5. There's no integration with Google Docs in traditional email, either. That doesn't take away from Wave. Just be patient.
6. You've totally lost me here. First you're complaining about being able to see everyone update instantaneously down to their very keystrokes, now you're saying it's too slow? Huh?
7. There are already websites that do this. Why would we want a centralized "store" controlled by one company like iTunes? Shouldn't we be moving away from this model?
8. Notice the Spam button in your Inbox? Maybe you should have actually researched this instead of Twittering about your Twitter clients.
9. Waves are only open to other Wave users because Wave is in a private beta. Wait a couple of months and this will be a nonissue.
Regardless, I've found that whether a service can be used for productive work depends more on how it is used, than how it is designed. In that sense, I think email is one of the least productive tools ever designed, but it serves well as a communication medium. Notice how I replied to this three day after it was written? Learn to turn some things off and focus on your work now and then.
Old habits are hard to break. I'm sure ten years from now, email will still be used for forwarding chain letters and Scoble will still be trolling the Internet for Microsoft. Some of us will have moved on, but other things just never change.
Looks like something great in making!
I have tried to write about how I see wave for productivity at http://www.masteringwave.com/2009/10/my-view-on....
What it is, is a really cool protocol for collaboration and app development. I really don't know why Google bothered inviting more users, rather than pulling from the developer signup form. Until a ton of cool stuff is developed, lots of users really aren't going to get it, and then they write unimaginative, whiny nonsense like this post.
Google needed some way to hang a definition of Wave on a particular application, and e-mail was the culprit. I don't see how else Google could've explained it and launched it to the open source community, but there are probably some brilliant campaign message strategists out there who could make a recommendation or two.
It may be productive if the GoogleWave folks (and you, and the community) would shift from comparing fully mature, ripe Apples to just-planted Orange seeds.
While the Wave team's original goal was to create a better email solution, what they discovered was a concept with what they sensed has for more potential. So, rather than invest too much of their own time trying to find a nail for their hammer, they opted to open it up for the community and let Developers create their own Wave-based apps.
The challenge is, when one opens up code (and concepts) to the OS Community, one never knows where it'll go. That's a bad thing for those in the message-massaging business, for fear of the message getting out of control and taking on a life of its own. That's good news for the OS Community, that can't help but drool over getting their mitts on a past-proven genius-level team's code.
I commend Google for tossing a gem out to the Open Source Community to see what they can dream up. Let's face it, most companies wouldn't take that risk; and the ones that do often toss out their clunkers.
My sense is, GoogleWave's not a clunker. That said, if it were 100% guaranteed to succeed, it wouldn't be so damn interesting to so many. ;)
Definition of Hype:
1. obvious and intentional exaggeration.
2. an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”
So, "over-hype" is by definition, "hype." GoogleWave will remain in "hype" mode until it has a practical application or two (or ten).
I'd like to think we could give it some time, and provide the 3PDs out there with some ideas and feedback on what we think GW could be good for. I'd hate to see this new way of thinking die on the vine before it even bears fruit.
- John Coonen
Co-Host, CMS Expo Learning Conference
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