The much awaited release of Google Wave is now taking place; with 100,000 lucky users getting invites to use the ambitious online communication and collaboration platform. Wave was first unveiled at Google I/O back in May, with Google co-founder Sergey Brin telling us that the product “will set a new benchmark for interactivity.” Our very own MG Siegler appeared yesterday on G4’s Attack of the Show to explain what’s so special about Wave and how it could change the web.
MG says that Wave can best be characterized as email, plus instant messaging, plus real-time collaboration wrapped up in one package. One of the key components of Wave is its open-source platform, which encourages developers to build games, messaging, and other types of applications on top of Google Wave. But it’s still yet to be determined whether Wave will take off; it could face backlash. Watch the video above for more.
Droopy!
Seriously, Google’s setting themselves up for failure with this one. It’s just a fancy forum, nothing more. The interface is really jumbled too.
And yeah, the sleepy hipster d-bag on TV isn’t helping things along either.
not gonna lie, kind of like that nickname. rivals the one you guys gave to paul, “MG and this douche”
Affectionately coined!
MG, bro, more coffee for you before these kinds of things.
I don’t think you need more coffee; normal just seems droopy compared to the over-hyped host.
I gave you props on my tech blog, and also warn people about the scams. You might want to do that, too. There’s a lot of spammy junk going on out there.
http://www.exam...-link-is-a-scam
dude you have a great job and all that jazz. look happy man.
you look so depressed and like a child.
Try a shot of Nespresso. Get micheal to get a nespresso machine for your office. do you world of good.
I was more confused about what wave is after watching this interview. Stop talking in generalities!
well it is a few minute spot on TV, can’t really go too in detail. feel free to read TC for that.
This should officially kill wave. FYI droopal, us kids don’t want tech advice from a middle aged man wearing hippster glasses sporting a 5-head. It’s just too creepy.
Only MG could rave about how exciting something is whilst looking like he’s just been to his own funeral.
google wave shows all the signs or being googles “Apple Lisa” moment.
Google Wave will be a huge failure. You heard it here first.
Then we know who to laugh at.
First, I am not a Google fanboy! I am also not a conspiracy theorist. BUT I wonder if its good to have that much of our data, resources, and reliance sunk into one company. Also I just got my invite so I have first hand experience with it.
That being said, I can see Google Wave replacing email in Google’s new OS.
With wave, the playback feature, even in its infancy, is great. The ability to see peoples response in time (aka the thought process and how they arrived at the conclusion or lack their of) is very very useful. In the future I can see doing the same into all your streams.
Can’t wait for more feature to hit wave. It will fail if they leave it hanging without adding features in the next 3 months or less.
J
Wow amazing! You must have never heard of…. A FORUM!
I don’t understand what the forum comparison is. A forum is in no way personal, a wave is. Why even sign in here and use your half witted attempt at sarcasim? Lame.
And until you try it, don’t knock it. I’m so tired of all these ppl speculating constently about it. Get and invite and then judge. Until then stfu
Google’s strategy has always been to send out “invites” to make the 100,000 or so peole feel special and consequently get them to generate buzz about their product. It’s actually a really good technique. You can see the people on this site pooping their pants over the product because they received an invite. ; )
I can see why so many people keep making the Forum comparison, but I don’t I can convince anyone to abandon their email in favor of complete communication transparency on a Forum. Since it’s safe to say that on the spectrum of communication tools between Emails and Forums, Google Wave is much more like email.
With that said, yes it would take a number of herculean advancements to really influence the mass of non-goggle users to consider Wave as the primary tool for communication but after the bugs are worked out I don’t see why they wouldn’t just flip all Gmail users over to Wave by default.
I’ve got my Google Wave access so personally I’m excited to see how it works in terms of collaborating on web development projects.
Since I’m already on Goggle voice with shared Google Calendars, I would expect to see in the future the ability to schedule a meeting, attach relevant emails to that meeting and pick the contacts to be involved, then at the time of the meeting it would call each of these people and create a conference call while simultaneously sending meeting members a link to a new Wave with the previous wave attached for reference. Then as the meeting takes place, it transcribes the entire meeting via Google voice directly into Google Wave for documentation. All the while the Wave can make references to files stored in Google Docs related to this particular project.
That’s just it, though. We won’t be tied to one company… because this will be an open platform. Anyone will be able to run their own Wave servers.
Doesn’t “gaga” imply excitement?
Gangster alert: He can’t smile too much because he is a gangster and they don’t smile. Plus, I heard girls think he’s cute.
smiling is for suckas.
Wow..I like it, Kinda of like Microsoft Share point,except that it’s a Beta and isn’t really fully functional, but hey a least its new to some people
As a daily user of Sharepoint at my company, and somebody who actually has had a chance to *gasp* use a product before I review it, there is no comparison between Sharepoint and Wave. Sharepoint isn’t at all real time, there is no simultaneous editing by multiple users. In fact, we find our Sharepoint server’s doc mgt feature to be substandard. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft’s Office suite is fantastic, but their web apps leave much to be desired. We are lucky to have a killer Sharepoint developer who actually made our site usable. However, it isn’t Wave. They have two different primary functions. Sharepoint is simply more static and more geared toward centralized document storage and its “web part” services display. Wave is an instant communication protocol/platform.
I hate hype, just like you. However, the reason Wave is so hyped is because when you use it you are shocked by what the browser can do. I just dragged and dropped a JPG into a browser window.
As much as I’m sick of Google (and all the Google fleece / visor / tshirt wearing employees that have invaded my neighborhood), it’ll be a hit.
love the headline. goo goo ga ga.
olivia munn is the ultimate guy’s girl.
Hot yes, but too vulgar, more like an ultimate frat boy’s social girl.
They should change the title to: “MG Poops His Pants Over Google Wave On TV”
Still over hyped, some interesting things, but not a revolution.
Wait, what the hell does this have to do with Lady Gaga?
I’ve seen this one before, but there are some interesting variables in this play.
I remember a desktop application from a small company with zero brand recognition but a crack engineering team, and their marketing called it a “virtual office” that had chat, voice, email, and other applications that would all synchronize with specific groups of people. And, it was a “platform” for developers to create their own killer apps.
I was a user, and got hooked on it for years. In fact, I worked for the company, and all of our customers, once they had their “a-ha” moment about how productive they could be while leaving email behind, got hooked on it.
The app made some inroads in a variety of verticals, but never took off – we’ll never know exactly why, but it’s safe to throw out some theories.
1. Small company – limited awareness
2. Desktop app – hard to penetrate the enterprise
3. Identity crisis – was it an app or platform?
4. Cost – $200/user
5. Ubiquity – the whole idea fails without pervasive use – think about how easy it is to find a FaceBook user today – almost easier than email!
There are more, but you get the drift.
Anyway – the company (Groove Networks) was bought by Microsoft in 2005 and rolled into the Office Suite – they will be releasing it as something called Microsoft Office SharePoint Workspace, which will essentially be a client app for SharePoint.
As a previous writer pointed out – SharePoint and Wave are completely different. But Wave and Groove are much more similar – with one being a complete web app, and other offering similar functionality in a client.
IMHO, Google will be able to solve 1-4 above quite easily – number 5 is the key. And as we’ve seen from attempts like Orkut, just having the Google name does not guarantee mass adoption.
Groove was the next generation of Lotus Notes both conceived by Ray Ozzie, (took over for Bill on the technical stuff at MS) Ray was described by Bill as one of the brightest people he ever met.
Anyway, it’s all about communication. I recall the early days of Lotus Notes they tried to describe what it was by calling it email on steroids, it is a development environment with email capability. While Notes is not as flexible as Wave it had the same sort of start.
Nobody seemed to know what it was or why someone would want to own it? Only after a few really good applications came on the scene did it start to click for the corporate type.
I would be interested in what Ray Ozzie thinks of Wave, he being a part of the MS organization and a collaborative computing legend would not probably be too free to share his true thoughts. I am guessing there will be several flavors of Cloud based OS like, tools that empower communication from MS, SalesForce, and Google to name a few.
Personally I have been a Lotus Notes fan boy for over 18 years and Wave has my attention. Sharepoint is still “yawn!” not doing it for me. I also used Groove and the Sharepoint parts as well, there is still some real cultural stuff that MS needs to work through before that will become a reality. I am guessing Azure will be the new Groove.
Was very excited for Wave.
Signed up on Day 1.
No invite yet.
Wondering how many could have possibly signed up on the first day.
8(
That’s going gaga? I don’t think Lady Gaga is going to lose any sleep over losing the enthusiasm contest. Good interview though and thanks finally for a succinct way to describe Google Wave.
MG add me
jfisherace@googlewave.com
Thanks Brah
I’m looking forward to the first federation baby steps between wavesandbox.com and googlewave.com… kind of like the first time someone sent email from one domain name to another…
Exciting times indeed.
MG – Can you hear me now?
Can Joe The Plumber use it or is Google Wave too complex?
If too complex than forget about Wave.
If you can use facebook, you can use wave. So far I see it more as a productivity booster for work. I think when I see more of the widgets/apps, it will look more like something for the masses.
Splash Back – How Google Wave’s Beta selection is FLAWED.
This post will appear in every single Technology Blog comment section that deals with Google Wave.
On May 27th, 2009 I remember waking up early that morning because I heard that Google was going to announce something special. As we all know that product turned out to be Google Wave, a product that Google claims to be what email would be if it were invented today. On that day they announced that the sandbox was going to be open for developers only, and that a limited release would come later in the year to a select few people who signed up using their sign up form.
I immediately signed up because I knew that Google Wave would be very useful for my two lines of work. As the days and months passed I read every single article from blogs like this one, I viewed countless Youtube videos that demoed exactly how Google Wave works. My excitement grew.
It was then announced that September 30th, 2009 “100,000″ new users would be allowed into the Google Wave beta. I figured since I signed up early and I put in a detailed reason how I would use Google Wave I would certainly be among the first to get an invite. I was wrong.
I have been a loyal Googler. When the search engine launch I shared with my then High School friends why Google was better then that altavista/dogpile site they were using. When Gmail came out I announced to my College friends that they should make the switch as I called Gmail revolutionary. When Google acquired Blogger I bought a damn Blogger logo sweater and wore it around campus.
Google – why wasn’t I invited to Google Wave?
I know of countless individuals on twitter who didn’t even use your pathetic sign-up form that I filled out on May 27th who have since gone on to receive invitations just for begging on twitter! One of my twitter friends was “nominated” 12 hours before he received an account. Meanwhile, my wait has been over 6 months.
Your process for rolling out products is COMPLETELY UNFAIR.
You claim that there are scalability issues when it comes to your new service and this is why you are only limiting “100,000″ invitations initially. I call BS on this. Your plan is to create hype around the product with a limited release like you did with Gmail and Google Voice. Who are we kidding? You are Google, you have enough resources to copy every single website around the world every few minutes, but you can’t scale new users on this new product?
The only people who can activate new Google Wave users are located in Australia. How about flying two employees to the great western hemisphere and keep them knocking off people in the original queue – you know, the list of people who signed up the morning of May 27th, 2009.
I understand the importance of Google Wave. I work part-time with a news gathering organization and I see how Google Wave can be very useful for the journalism world. I also work full-time as a web developer and Google Wave will be a benefit in the collaboration of building websites.
I would be a person who would be using Google Wave every minute of every day – but I probably won’t get invited for another 6 months because of some idiotic sign up process.
Screw you Google.
you want some tissue?
This thing is co cool I have ice sickles on my eyelids. Does anyone want to invite me to use Wave? Send invite to info@toddsantoro.com
Communicative Implications: Sounds like a future medium of Facebook & Twitter sharing for all the domain names of the internet (days everyone goes to just one site for this are gone?) – The problem has been everyone doesn’t know how to develop a domain name website; now, they may have the will and easier adaptation..
wave addresses how email is failing us…
it is just addressing the dead ends you hit when you have to forward an email and make 2 copies of one conversation… how can efficiency be a failure?
I’m extremely surprised that I’m the first person to mention Zimbra here. Honestly, Zimbra has got to be the closest existing product to Google Wave as far as I’m aware.
Zimbra 6.0 just released with tons of cool features, it’s web based like google Wave, it includes IM like google wave, it includes social network integration which allows users to mange their entire network profiles from within Zimbra… you can tweet from zimbra, or view your facebook feeds, or Digg, and lots more all from Zimbra.
Mind you, Google Wave looks awesome, but I don’t quite understand why no one has mentioned that Zimbra is VERY VERY much like Google Wave.
Anyone got any thoughts on the subject?
Can you guys ever figure out how to link a video on your blog that is not on youtube.
Shameful!