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Google Kills Wave

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Re: Google Kills Wave

#201

Post by code_duck »

dpcan wrote: post #51

Sorry, but this is Google's fault. Right when all us geeks were HUNGRY to start trying out this system, only a handful of us received invites, and when I did, it took WEEKS or longer for anyone else I worked with to get an invite IF they ever did. So, Wave was useless to me to begin with and by the time it was available to everyone, I wasn't interested and neither were any of my co-workers. I would blame the launch f…

Total agreement here. I was very interested in checking it out, but I wasn't allowed to, in spite of all the publicity? It didn't make me want to go begging for invites, it just made me ignore it.

Re: Google Kills Wave

#202

Post by elblanco »

swombat wrote: post #147
frossie wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what the complement of Kill Early/Often is? It's me never letting my shop use a new Google product ever again. People invest time in adopting these technologies. Sure, with a little startup you take into account the fact that they might not be able to survive, but with Google you think hey, okay, let's use this thing. And you start developing your process around it. And then you get burned when it gets dropp…

Yep, same here. I gave a friggen' talk about Wave at a TechCrunch event. I used it. I wrote an article about it. Inc.com wrote a "personal viewpoint" column where they presented me as a Wave supporter. Google just lost all credibility with me as an early adopter. From now on, I'll wait 2 years before I start supporting a new Google product, since they apparently have no staying power.

Too bad they'll never let something last 2-years.

Re: Google Kills Wave

#203

Post by elblanco »

bentoner wrote: post #175

It seems that at their scale, Google doesn't bother to (is unable to?) evolve individual products, rather they pivot by launching and killing entire projects. The same thing happened with Google's 3D world product, Lively, and the following comparison of Lively with IMVU by Eric Ries is pertinent: "By the time they [Google] actually managed to launch something, they were building the product that we had already disco…

This is really a key point. Outside of a few wave template buttons, has any of the core interface problems with the Wave client been addressed since the initial semi-private-invite-only release? Wave seems fundamentally the same to me as a user as it did a year ago when I first saw it. Yet users in general have complained about the same problems the entire time, none of which appear to have been addressed.

Re: Google Kills Wave

#204

Post by bl4k »

thegyppo wrote: post #181
orangecat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could go back and time, exclude Buzz from Gmail but instead add Wave, I think they'd have better success for it. No question. Wave should have been an alternate view of your Gmail account. Instead it was a completely distinct environment that you had to manage separately, which most people aren't going to be bothered to do.

The main reason I didn't like it is a very simple one, and it has to do with automatic sign-in to Google properties based on whether you're logged into Analytics or Gmail or the like. Since we use a corporate email for Analytics but personal ones for Wave it meant having to switch logins all the time. Might sound trivial but actually put me off using the product at all.

If you had an apps account, you could have requested Google Wave. We got it a while ago.

Re: Google Kills Wave

#205

Post by bl4k »

nzjames wrote: post #110
drusenko wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were unable to use Wave because it never worked for hosted Google accounts. That sucks.

Do you mean Google Apps for your domain? It does work. Quite well in fact.

I can confirm this. We have been using Wave with Apps since just after Wave launched. It took off internally for a while and then petered out, but it is definitely there. To get it, go to:

http://wave.google.com/a/myappsdomain.com

Re: Google Kills Wave

#206

Post by trezor »

runT1ME wrote: post #78
alextgordon wrote: post #42

It failed because it was completely invisible. Facebook spams your inbox. They make sure you know that you have an account and that people are trying to reach you (or tell the world about their cat, etc). With wave, it's silent. There was activity on a wave I was following in January. I found out about it in March. Someone replied to something I said on July 21st. I'm only just finding out now . What kind of a commun…

You pose an interesting problem. It was (eventually) supposed to replace email, so I'm assuming it was envisioned everyone would check wave every day, or have it constantly open, etc. Except it hadn't replaced email, so would the better alternative been to have Wave spam your email with updates? Seems kind of hypocritical..

It was (eventually) supposed to replace email

While it may have been able to do this if handled correctly, nobody was going to check waves recently when invites where superexclusive and you could only communicate with random strangers you found on the ars-wave, which you also found entirely by random trying to see if it could be used for anything.

Really. It was solid technology and very neat engineering, but there was no social incentive to use it.

Re: Google Kills Wave

#207

Post by DomesticMouse »

bl4k wrote: post #205
nzjames wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean Google Apps for your domain? It does work. Quite well in fact.

I can confirm this. We have been using Wave with Apps since just after Wave launched. It took off internally for a while and then petered out, but it is definitely there. To get it, go to: http://wave.google.com/a/myappsdomain.com

It needs (or, past tense ...) to be configured before it's available. On the apps configuration page...

Re: Google Kills Wave

#208

Post by Concours »

alextgordon wrote: post #42

It failed because it was completely invisible. Facebook spams your inbox. They make sure you know that you have an account and that people are trying to reach you (or tell the world about their cat, etc). With wave, it's silent. There was activity on a wave I was following in January. I found out about it in March. Someone replied to something I said on July 21st. I'm only just finding out now . What kind of a commun…

"If Google had actually notified users when they got new messages, they would have logged into wave, sent more messages and wave would have lasted longer. Instead, messages were sent but never read, so Wave lost all the momentum it had."

Google does, I always receive an email notifying me of new wave messages. I think google tried to sell a productivity tool as a mainstream product, working with Wave as a CSCW ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_supported_cooperative_... ) tool has been a dream so far. Too bad , they will stop working on it.

Edit: Quotation

Re: Google Kills Wave

#209

Post by edanm »

pvg wrote: post #161
tc wrote: post #12

Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. Did Google believe that this was going to succeed as a consumer product, à la Facebook? Wave, as it exists today, is a great tool for corporate communications. With the right interfaces, integration, and extensions it could definitely displace Exchange and Lotus Notes. Eventually, as a protocol, it had the potential to transcend email. Maybe Google just hoped W…

Wave, as it exists today, is a great tool for corporate communications. With the right interfaces, integration, and extensions it could definitely displace Exchange and Lotus Notes. Aren't these two sentences contradictory? 'Wave is a great product if you changed the interface, integration points and, really, if it was a different product'. I think there's a tendency to over-analyze the reasons Wave was not a success…

I'm no mutant (and certainly not a a merry one), but I got a lot of use out of it. And I certainly didn't invest a lot of time into "figuring it out", I just used it in the simplest way I could, which is create new waves, talk to people on them, and that's it.

This proves, imo, that it wasn't a failure of product, but of marketing. Most people opened Wave and had no idea what to expect and no idea what to do with it, which led them to believe it was an "inscrutable mess". If I'd have shown you Wave without all the hoopla that Google used, I'd have said "here's a tool for project collaboration. Open a new topic whenever you want to talk about it, then all the team members can add/edit content and everyone can see it live, and it just works!". And I think then you would both a) understand it immediately, and b) understand whether it is of value to you.

Google set up such different expectations for it that it's no wonder people didn't "get it".

Re: Google Kills Wave

#210

Post by frossie »

swombat wrote: post #147
frossie wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what the complement of Kill Early/Often is? It's me never letting my shop use a new Google product ever again. People invest time in adopting these technologies. Sure, with a little startup you take into account the fact that they might not be able to survive, but with Google you think hey, okay, let's use this thing. And you start developing your process around it. And then you get burned when it gets dropp…

Yep, same here. I gave a friggen' talk about Wave at a TechCrunch event. I used it. I wrote an article about it. Inc.com wrote a "personal viewpoint" column where they presented me as a Wave supporter. Google just lost all credibility with me as an early adopter. From now on, I'll wait 2 years before I start supporting a new Google product, since they apparently have no staying power.

Imagine how these guys feel:

http://completewaveguide.com/

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