Slashdot Mirror
Google Wave Reviewed
Michael_Curator writes "Developers are finally getting their hands on the developer preview of Google's Wave, which means we can finally get some first-hand accounts of what it's really like to use, unfiltered by Google's own programmers. Ben Rometsch, a developer with U.K. Web development firm Solid State, blogged that, it's 'probably the most advanced application in a browser that I've seen.' Wave is like giant Web page onto which users can drag and drop any kind of object, including instant messaging and IRC [Internet Relay Client] clients, e-mail, and wikis, as well as gadgets like maps and video. All conversations, work product and applications are stored on remote servers — presumably forever. 'It's like real time email. On crack,' he wrote. And unlike the typically minimalist Google UI, 'It feels a lot more like a desktop application that just so happens to live in your browser.'" User molex333 has already written a Slashdot app and shares his initial reactions here.
I've dabbled with http://g.ho.st/ and it sounds similar. I've been impressed at how snappy g.ho.st is, so I would expect good things from Google, also.
I've participated in a wavelet writing hack-a-thon and was impressed by the scope of the collaboration that it provides. I saw it as an email, shared docs, blogs, instant messaging, photo sharing in one protocol. It certainly wasn't perfect and some parts were rather underwhelming but overall it seemed like the beginning of a new way of doing things. I was talking with one of the devs in the Sydney office and he said that they use it internally and are surprised by the way that the more they used it the more they discovered new ways to use it. I took that as a good sign that it was a technology/protocol that was at the beginning of the discovery rather than one that is released with every usage known. Would I use it commercially - not yet, but I can imagine it becoming a core tool to organising/interacting my social circle. I could easily see it being a great tool for collaborative programming and/or a new generation of remote role playing (build a dice rolling tool, a mapping tool etc.)
I just can't be bothered.
The more appropriate expression might be 'on steroids'. If it was 'on crack', it would look like a MySpace page.
But between this and Google OS and everything else, google is getting dangerously capable of mass information collection for nefarious purposes (read: more than is currently possible). Ive been willing enough to forgive the search engine because of its usefulness, but I see Google as the biggest potential data mining operation in the world. Have an OS, web search, email, chat, and voice all have the central management of one company who for all we know could have been served on of those secret orders they cant even talk about that all data mussed be passed on to some crazy orwellian agency. Not saying its true, but it makes you wonder...now I'm off to finish building my patented alaskan off-the-grid living structure called an igloo.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
"instead of learning the lesson that SMTP taught US 25 years ago " which lesson in particular are they ignoring?
As for the thick app argument, why do you care? Seriously, if the solution works it works. The toggle switch guys scoffed at the punch card guys, the punch card guys scoffed at the interactive asm editor guys, the asm guys scoffed at the C guys, the C guys scoffed at the Java guys, the Java guys scoff at the Ruby/Python/PHP/JS guys.
You don't see the trend?
What you're not seeing is Google's strategic intent (I work for Google, but this stuff is public).
Google's goal is to commodify (reduce the marginal profit to zero) of everything that they don't make money on. The hardware is pretty much commodified already. Plenty of competitors and the profit margins are razor thin. Next levels are the OS and the applications. These are not yet commodified due to Microsoft's aggressively maintained monopoly. Contrary to common knowledge, Microsoft's real monopoly is in the Office file formats. From that, they've levered a monopoly into basic individual productivity applications and then (with Apple's cooperation) the operating system. They are also a serious player in second-generation collaboration tools (extensions to basic email).
In order to reduce Microsoft's war chest and eliminate their competitiveness, Google seeks to lower the profit margin on everything Microsoft currently produces at a profit (Windows and Office). So they produce a cheaper operating system, cheaper productivity applications, and cheaper collaboration tools (ideally free to the typical user). Google doesn't need to make money (though breaking even would be nice), Google just needs to apply pressure to Microsoft to cut their revenues/profits and the strategic goals are being met.
Writing apps that run on Windows? Doesn't help Google very much (though SketchUp and Picasa and a few other things are native apps).
Writing protocols that run on any machine? Helps Google a lot.
Writing web applications that use those protocols and run on any machine? Helps Google a lot.
Look at the bigger picture. Google is acting extremely rationally here.
As for whether Wave is innovative or not, I don't think you've tried it and are speaking without informing yourself. Wave is to email as email is to snail mail (single addressee, no broadcast, etc.). Wave tackles the problem of a widely CC:'d email with an attached Word or Excel document (two threads of changes: one in the email thread, one in the document) (multiple obsolete copies of the document available) (possible confusion and delay as people are added to the thread and have to re-read the history duplicated in most of the recent emails). Wave creates a "place" for this discussion/collaborative authoring to happen and then let's everyone bring whatever they want to help out. Wave is not email++ (which is what Outlook and Gmail are).
" Right now, my chain goes:
Operating System -> Windowing System -> Application
or
Operating System -> Windowing System -> Virtual Machine -> Application
Google Wave is several abstractions farther down the chain:
Operating System -> Windowing System -> Browser -> Virtual Machine -> Google Wave -> Application "
Yeah.
What I want is:
BIOS --> that shit they had in minority report
Need Mercedes parts ?