Google’s Wave Doesn’t Look Like a Tsunami

I expressly waited a week to write a post about Google Wave. I knew that if I wrote about it right after seeing the demo presented on the I/O developer’s convention, I was going to be drunk with thoughts of what the future of communication looks like.

But after watching it two days later, further reading and analysis, and explaining what it is to colleagues and non-technical friends, I believe the product could be welcome in certain circles but will be largely ignored by the general population.

Bear in mind that I base this anaylsis on what I’ve seen and read. I haven’t actually tested the product. Am I awaiting eagerly to have it? Yes, absolutely. I think it’s one of the coolest apps I’ve seen in a long time. The main issue for me is that the tool is trying to be everything at once, but it’s not clear why that is an advantage.

Here are some of the pitfalls that I could see become an obstacle for the adoption of the tool.

User Wall-Gardening

As I’ve written in the past, Google has failed when it has tried to make inroads on the social forefront. Google makes great tools, but social platforms has not been its forté. For Google Wave to reach its full potential it should use open user authentication, i.e. allow people from any network (either Twitter, MySpace, Facebook or Yahoo) to become a contact in my Google Wave. From what I’ve read and seen, it looks like you will have to be a Google user to get entrenched on the Wave (but others might correct me). I know that Wave can be installed in a company server, and at that point I’m not sure how authentication would work. I sure hope Wave allows people from any network to participate and not just Google contacts.

When realtime becomes a nuisance

As Twitter has shown, followed by Facebook and FriendFeed, realtime communications is all the rage. It’s where we’re headed. I can handle it, but the majority of people I’ve showed this to get an instant negative reaction to it. At first they think it’s cool, but if you ask them if they would use something like this they usually reply “no, that’s too fast for me.”. Granted, you will be able to stop the “realtime” writing of messages in Google Wave, but then, what is the difference between writing a message there or writing a normal email on Gmail?

Email threading works well as it is, so does instant messaging

I don’t know about you, but the majority of my email threads include only one more person. I rarely use email to discuss something with more than two people, and after seeing the demo, I’m not sure that I want the communication to be all over the place, looking at scattered lines popping up all over my email with no order. Yes, Wave allows you to see a timed progression of the comments, but I could see it becoming hard to follow.

If I want to have a more interactive conversation with a family member or a friend, I hop on to instant messaging. If it’s a total stranger, I create a one-off chat room with tinychat. I wouldn’t want to invite a total stranger to my Google Wave or have a conversation with a co-worker whom I don’t want a closer relationship with in something other than my messenger client.

The Content Silo

It also looks super cool to upload all this content to Google Wave. In the demos we are shown how you can drag and drop photos to the client and see a lightbox-style photo slideshow. But where do the photos live at that point? I know I can embed them using a Wave gadget, but can I further fetch them, export them, manipulate the metadata? And again, what’s the difference (or the benefit) between this and attaching photos in an email?

The same thing goes with the Wiki-style sharing. This information would be trapped in Google’s servers and I would be a little wary that they’re not under our control any more. What if I want to build a Wiki from all the Waves that I have created and shared? Can I get all that information out?

The Bottom Line

I think Google is trying to solve a problem we don’t have in the first place. Google Wave feels like an auto manufacturer that wants to mix a sports car, a family car and pickup truck in one. Each one of them has a specific need and a specific set of benefits. Email, Instant Messaging and Wikis work fine as they are, and mixing them might be something that most people don’t have the need for. I think Google Wave is a pet project that happens to tap into the buzz word of realtime collaboration, but it fails to deliver something that could be actually useful.

Photo Credit: Title: Majestic Surfer Wave Artist: Bruce Burtenshaw

Tagged as: apps, wave