Google Wave?

I didnt watch it because I watched the first few minutes and nothing was really sad, and I cant sit and watch it. Maybe later.

With that being said... isn't everything you mentioned already here? Translated communication is the only thing I dont know of thats built into an IM service, so maybe, but you can use other translation services.

Real time chat.. check, real time e-mail.. check (well, it seems pretty quick to me, but also, what would be the difference between chat/email in this context), and file sharing.. check.

Maybe there's more to it, maybe itll be presented better and more convenient.. no clue.

I read a blog post instead of watching the video, but I just don't see what's so special about it. Is it that they integrate the communication tools you mentioned? Is it faster? Already, I can IM and email people from gmail. And if I want to collaborate on documents, I can use google docs.

What am I missing?

EDIT: Just to note, I've been using Chrome since its release, and I never thought I'd try a another browser.

I think the major parts of this are really the communication protocols and the open-sourcing of much of their code. Anyone with the time and inclination will be able to host their own wave server giving this the possibility of becoming as ubiquitous as e-mail over time, especially if it is very easy to 'switch' to e-mail based communication. The difference really IS that you can do all of this from one web-based application that won't need to be hosted on Google.

Until I use it myself I can't say how great it will be, but it has a lot of potential for good things. Of course I know how hard it is to switch to new things for many people when existing stuff is often good enough so I'm not going to wave my arms around screaming how this will change the world. Google HAS to sound excited about this and I'm sure the engineers think it has a lot of potential to be very awesome so I can't fault them for being proud of it.

Just got done watching it. Looks very promising. I love the real-time interaction of it. Really seamless networking just how it should be. :)

Quote:

Original post by anothrguitarist I read a blog post instead of watching the video, but I just don't see what's so special about it. Is it that they integrate the communication tools you mentioned? Is it faster? Already, I can IM and email people from gmail. And if I want to collaborate on documents, I can use google docs. What am I missing?

Watch the video from the 8th minute.

Basically, it's sorta like MSN messenger and its offline messages so far.

When the other person is away/offline, it acts like emails. When he's online, you both can type at the same time and see each other's text while the other person's still typing.

It's even more "real-time" than IM in that sense, since IMs usually only transmit stuff when you press enter. Here, it's as soon as you type any key.

It's all one system, of course.

Edit: Sharing images with your conversation members is as easy as dragging and dropping them in the convo.
Edit 2: Publishing a convo to a blog is as simple as adding "Bloggy" to the convo participants. Someone replying to that blog will appear in Wave too.

A great idea and definitely the future. I particularly liked the replay feature, and also just the simplicity of using so many different presentation types through the same communication medium.

My concern though is the classic chicken-and-egg problem. People aren't going to start using it if others aren't already using it, so either Wave gets lucky and people adopt it quickly like twitter, or it's going to have to be backwards compatible AT LEAST with existing emails if not IM/wiki/blog/etc for it to take off soon after launch.

Quote:

Original post by shurcool [...] When he's online, you both can type at the same time and see each other's text while the other person's still typing. It's even more "real-time" than IM in that sense, since IMs usually only transmit stuff when you press enter. Here, it's as soon as you type any key.

"...and this was difficult to do."

So difficult to do and so innovative that none of the other instant messengers have it. Not even ICQ in 1996. OH WAIT...

I've only skimmed the video, but I'm not impressed. I don't need a SIXTH messenger, and I never liked the in-browser-application approach. I'm sure I'll give it a whirl when it comes out, but my breath is not bated.

Quote:

Original post by brainscrape I don't need a SIXTH messenger

But would you be interested in a single application that can handle IM, email, your documents, blogging, twitter, social networking, games, file sharing, and do it all better and faster with an enhanced feature set and more extensibility than any one of those things combined without all the bloated legacy bullshit? And have it open sourced to the biggest, most eager, and most competent community in existence?

I would!

If you hate having six messengers than you should be extra supportive of Wave because its the only product from the only company in the world that has the potential to reduce the need for fifty different poorly designed and mutually exclusive communication apps. Even if everyone's service just rebrands Wave, it's still the same framework and would all be compatible, and it would still look a hell of a lot better than everything that's out there now.

Quote:

Original post by shurcool When the other person is away/offline, it acts like emails. When he's online, you both can type at the same time and see each other's text while the other person's still typing. It's even more "real-time" than IM in that sense, since IMs usually only transmit stuff when you press enter. Here, it's as soon as you type any key.

So its kinda like Warcraft 2's lobby chat system (Im talking the 1995 version, the one you connected via calling the person basically)? I thought they didn't do it that way because that is TERRIBLE. I make lots of typos and I like IM because I can easily press delete a few times. Or I am explaining something somewhat complicated and realize I should reword it. To be honest, that feature seems like a step backward =(

With that being said, if there's a feature to disable it, great. Also, if it DOES put everything in one application, ok, that's sort of nice. I don't know if I'd use it right away, unless it worked with AIM/MSN/Skype/my normal e-mail, which I'm sure it will or will eventually.

Edit:

Quote:

Edit: Sharing images with your conversation members is as easy as dragging and dropping them in the convo. Edit 2: Publishing a convo to a blog is as simple as adding "Bloggy" to the convo participants. Someone replying to that blog will appear in Wave too.

1) I can do that with AIM. I dont think MSN lets you send multiple files through convos, but that seems pretty simple to do if you can send it to one person.
2) I guess that's sort of cool? I never understood blogs that much, they seem like fluffed articles. Since I dont really do the blog thing, I cant really comment on how useful that is, but it seems barely. I cant imagine a blog with a few comments will have someone comment during a conversation about said blog, more importantly, why it would need to appear in the convo right away, as if a complete stranger who just chime into a conversation and expect to be taken seriously.

Quote:

Original post by Crazyfool Quote: Original post by shurcool When the other person is away/offline, it acts like emails. When he's online, you both can type at the same time and see each other's text while the other person's still typing. It's even more "real-time" than IM in that sense, since IMs usually only transmit stuff when you press enter. Here, it's as soon as you type any key. So its kinda like Warcraft 2's lobby chat system (Im talking the 1995 version, the one you connected via calling the person basically)? I thought they didn't do it that way because that is TERRIBLE. I make lots of typos and I like IM because I can easily press delete a few times. Or I am explaining something somewhat complicated and realize I should reword it. To be honest, that feature seems like a step backward =(

One of the speakers in the presentation mentioned that for such reasons they are including a feature (which is apparently not fully implemented yet but will be included in the final version) that allows you to delay the publishing of your message.

The main speaker also seemed to imply that it features live spell-checking near the beginning, but I'm not sure because he said "more on that later" and I didn't want to watch the entire presentation.

I impressed with the way you can split a previous message, simulating a forum discussion in real-time without actually duplicating the quoted text.

Quote:

Original post by think_different My concern though is the classic chicken-and-egg problem. People aren't going to start using it if others aren't already using it, so either Wave gets lucky and people adopt it quickly like twitter, or it's going to have to be backwards compatible AT LEAST with existing emails if not IM/wiki/blog/etc for it to take off soon after launch.

I think that's probably why very few companies besides Google could have a chance at successfully launching a service like this. That's probably also one of the reasons they're making it open-source.

Personally I'm very excited about the prospects of this, and I'll be trying to convince my friends to try it out when it's fully launched (although chances are they will try it out without my saying a word).

Quote:

Original post by LockePick Quote: Original post by brainscrape I don't need a SIXTH messenger But would you be interested in a single application that can handle IM, email, your documents, blogging, twitter, social networking, games, file sharing, and do it all better and faster with an enhanced feature set and more extensibility than any one of those things combined without all the bloated legacy bullshit? And have it open sourced to the biggest, most eager, and most competent community in existence? I would!

Wait, a place where you can run all the programs you want... don't they call that an operating system? "Without all the bloated legacy bullshit". You do realize that the entire purpose of AJAX is to hack application-like functionality onto bloated, legacy HTML and CSS, right?

The Web Browser, as an application platform, is an inferior platform. The fact that no "better" system exists does not change this fact. Even with Google Chrome, all of these web apps will never run as well as applications on the desktop.

Quote:

Original post by Crazyfool Quote: Original post by shurcool It's even more "real-time" than IM in that sense, since IMs usually only transmit stuff when you press enter. Here, it's as soon as you type any key. So its kinda like Warcraft 2's lobby chat system (Im talking the 1995 version, the one you connected via calling the person basically)?

Or like the UNIX app "talk" over 26 years ago, or like a plain old terminals, or even older, dating back to the good old teletype from 90 years ago.

Clearly this is an emerging technology!



Their integration of services is interesting to see coming to retail. It isn't exactly 'new' since there have been somewhat similar systems in academia for over a decade.

Around 12 years ago when Interactive Whiteboards were all the rage in research and I was still in grad school, several fellow students were working on projects where you could move blocks of images, text, shapes, and so on between virtual whiteboards. It was automatically saved in a format remarkably similar to what Microsoft OneNote offers, but it allowed real-time collaboration between two stations. It looked remarkably similar to the Google Wave preview video, except that they didn't have blogs back then. Otherwise it had basically all the same stuff.

Again, it is exciting to see these things starting to hit retail, but Google isn't the first one, nor the second one (Microsoft OneNote and Communicator), nor even the tenth one to try to implement this.

Quote:

Original post by capn_midnight Quote: Original post by LockePick Quote: Original post by brainscrape I don't need a SIXTH messenger But would you be interested in a single application that can handle IM, email, your documents, blogging, twitter, social networking, games, file sharing, and do it all better and faster with an enhanced feature set and more extensibility than any one of those things combined without all the bloated legacy bullshit? And have it open sourced to the biggest, most eager, and most competent community in existence? I would! Wait, a place where you can run all the programs you want... don't they call that an operating system? "Without all the bloated legacy bullshit". You do realize that the entire purpose of AJAX is to hack application-like functionality onto bloated, legacy HTML and CSS, right? The Web Browser, as an application platform, is an inferior platform. The fact that no "better" system exists does not change this fact. Even with Google Chrome, all of these web apps will never run as well as applications on the desktop.

Skipping the obvious retorts of platform independence and access anywhere, you bring up an interesting point about the web browser becoming a platform in itself. As more and more of our daily computer tasks migrate into web apps, I wonder if in the future there would be some value in having a Web-Browser-Only OS/machine, where the only thing running is a web browser... as your desktop, your media player, and all your files are stored on public server space. Food for thought.

Quote:

Original post by think_different Quote: Original post by capn_midnight Quote: Original post by LockePick Quote: Original post by brainscrape I don't need a SIXTH messenger But would you be interested in a single application that can handle IM, email, your documents, blogging, twitter, social networking, games, file sharing, and do it all better and faster with an enhanced feature set and more extensibility than any one of those things combined without all the bloated legacy bullshit? And have it open sourced to the biggest, most eager, and most competent community in existence? I would! Wait, a place where you can run all the programs you want... don't they call that an operating system? "Without all the bloated legacy bullshit". You do realize that the entire purpose of AJAX is to hack application-like functionality onto bloated, legacy HTML and CSS, right? The Web Browser, as an application platform, is an inferior platform. The fact that no "better" system exists does not change this fact. Even with Google Chrome, all of these web apps will never run as well as applications on the desktop. Skipping the obvious retorts of platform independence and access anywhere, you bring up an interesting point about the web browser becoming a platform in itself. As more and more of our daily computer tasks migrate into web apps, I wonder if in the future there would be some value in having a Web-Browser-Only OS/machine, where the only thing running is a web browser... as your desktop, your media player, and all your files are stored on public server space. Food for thought.

platform independence and access anywhere were solved years ago by Java WebStart. For as much as I don't like Java, it's still a better, more performant platform than AJAX web apps.

I don't think this will take the place of a "new IM client". Google would be doing themself a disservice if they didn't add this functionality into their already existing applications. Basically combining Google Talk, Gmail, Docs, and Picassa into one interface. You should be able to use the features separately like now or together as a live, collaborative effort.

None of these features are "new". The innovation is in how easily it can be used and integrated into current services.

I am against the Web OS craze, but clearly Google's apps have advantages. For someone like me who has 3 different machines and logs in from different places with different OSs and applications, Google has radically simplified my digital life. I put all of my important information on my main page (which just so happens to be where I do 99% of my internet searches). My stock tickers, newsfeeds, e-mails, personal calendar, traffic and weather alerts, all sync across machines in real time regardless of OS or applications installed. Logging into one account gives me access to my calendar, docs, e-mail, IM, and searching history, fairly seamlessly. Try doing this with AIM or Windows Vista.

Quote:

Original post by ChurchSkiz I am against the Web OS craze, but clearly Google's apps have advantages.

You needn't be against it. Desktop apps aren't going away. We'll just see more lighter portable versions of those desktop apps start appearing online. Can you imagine one day having GoogleCode IDE for lightweight software development and testing when you're not at home or on a computer that lets you install applications? I could. And I would use it a lot. Yet it wouldn't replace Visual Studio Professional for serious software development just as Google Docs won't replace Microsoft Word for serious document editing.

@think_different: I can't rate you up enough for your comments in this thread (edit: so I bookmarked your blog instead). My initial skepticism has turned into anticipation.

I like server apps. I dislike cloud apps.

I have a windows home server, all files synched up (and auto-backup). so i can use my notebooks and desktops just as if they where all the same.

But I have all my data under my control.

I do like google for the way they develop their apps. But I don't want my (digital) life in their hands. And still they do have it, even now. I do use gmail as i'm too lazy for something else (and it's a great app). I do use their search all day long.

I still prefer to have stuff on an own server, that is local at home.

with clickonce i create dynamic apps that behave like webapps (as long as i stay in the windows world) in their everywhere without installation sence, but still are full real apps. just like the java webstart thingy.

i want my data in my hands.

no matter how much one can hype the cloudworld how great it all is. i do see those points. i still hate ajax-html-apps, and i will always be against storing my data online in someone else's hands.

Quote:

It's even more "real-time" than IM in that sense, since IMs usually only transmit stuff when you press enter. Here, it's as soon as you type any key.

Someone already brought up ICQ, but you could do that with telnet on 2400 baud modem, way back, you know.

Quote:

Can you imagine one day having GoogleCode IDE

I'm not a coder myself, but i've been looking at tech blogs discussing Google Wave, and many people seem to agree on the point that Google produces notoriously bad code in their apps. What about that ? Anyone looked under the hood of any G-tool ?