thinkMoult » google wave http://thinkmoult.com Seriously who ever reads this description. Sun, 08 Apr 2012 03:22:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Planning to surf the Wave? http://thinkmoult.com/2009/09/30/planning-to-surf-the-wave/ http://thinkmoult.com/2009/09/30/planning-to-surf-the-wave/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:56:04 +0000 Dion Moult http://thinkmoult.com/?p=1050 Any self-respecting online crawler would know that Google Wave has started their private invitation-only beta. No, I don’t (yet) have an invitation. This does remind me of way back when GMail went through this phase. I obviously secured myself an invite early on (where early is relative) and switched over from Microsoft’s Hotmail to turn GMail into my mail provider and client of choice. However for quite a while now I’ve switched over from GMail and have been slowly erasing my Google identity. With this switch I have gained both flexibility, control, and more importantly – insight into my workflow.

The question I’ve been asking myself is: will I use Google Wave? Initially, I would say “sure why not? It’s revolutionary” – but truth be told, I’ve overestimated the hype.

Wave is a pimped web application. The question is not whether the web was built for this technology, because advances like this never are. The question is neither if I’d enjoy integrating Wave’s API into my blog and related websites. The question is if I can realistically see myself using Wave in my workflow?

Wave is a way to communicate and collaborate. At the moment I do all my communication through my blog, instant messaging, and my phone. I collaborate through version control, mailing lists, and Google Docs. Wave will not replace any single one of those, except perhaps mailing lists. Personally, and I’m sure this applies to others too, Wave is not something I will use to replace another in my workflow – instead it will add a completely new, unrelated workflow.

But what is this workflow? I see it in document collaboration for businesses. But honestly, I don’t see it in much else. I don’t see it in social networking (if I even used it). I don’t see it replacing any form of instant messaging. And I especially don’t see it invading the web with its API. The web is changing, yes, and changing fast. A website is a blank canvas that the user will accept anything and everything they see on it. This is very different from desktop applications – where a single out of place UI widget will provoke suspicion from the user. However despite the unlimited number of things you can do to a webpage – you simply can’t bond two of them together. You can’t make the user feel like its an integrated environment. Heck, sometimes it’s hard to make a single website look integrated. This is what I believe is the biggest setback, and the biggest weakness of what Wave is trying to achieve. This isn’t said from a selfish web-developer point of view, it’s coming from a person who uses the web just as much as the desktop.

What do you see Wave in? Will you surf the Wave?

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