It seems only a short time ago that Google introduced their latest endeavour to the world in beta – Google Wave. I remember watching the keynote by the developers at Google IO and thinking that it looked pretty damn cool, but I am beginning to wonder if my first impressions were only such because of the technologies they used to create it. At heart I am a web designer, and so seeing Google implement so many cool features of HTML5 alongside real-time updates and all the other cool stuff they showcased, properly drew my attention away from the service itself. You do have to admit that it is well put together, but for me it is nothing more that a showcase of what you can do with the newest web technologies. Furthermore I believe that few people will adopt waving as opposed to email. I remember the first time I waved. I was impressed, but then I realised it was nothing more than a fancy instant messaging service. Features such as being able to step back through the edits of waves seem to me pointless – after all do we really care about the construction of a conversation rather than it’s outcome? I don’t.
I haven’t used Wave in months, and it is obvious why – it is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The reason we were all so excited about it’s launch was because it was coming from Google! I fail to understand where the developers of Wave are going with the project; I believe that there are very few people indeed that will replace email for Google’s Wave, therefore I believe it will simply fade into the background in the near future. I for one don’t really care, the only thing that worries me is the fact that the developers were more concerned with playing around with new technologies rather than focussing on what we, the users, actually want. What do you think? Will you be waving any time soon?
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One response to “Where is Google Wave going?”
I managed to get an invite to wave. But im the first one so I have no contacts to use it with which is a disappointment. I see where you are coming from and I partly agree, but the fact that google has already made the API and is considering letting us host a waving service in the same way as email makes me think there will eventually be some sort of email support in the next version. I mean people arn’t going to suddenly turn off their email and then into waves it will have to be gradual.
So basically i think the true value of wave to developers is obvious – the ability to put pre built html5 objects into our sites and systems. and then the value to the user is that all sites that use wave technology is aggregated in one place.