Thoughts On Google Wave: A Google Wave Review
When I was a kid, I would take foods that tasted really good by themselves and mix them all together – sometimes in a blender.
And it was fucking nasty.
I look at Google Wave as Google’s technological way of repeating the same experiment: take Docs, Orkut, Gmail, Wikipedia, and IM, stick them in a “blender”, and you get Google Wave. What follows are what conclusions I have drawn as a user/developer using Google Wave for the first time.
Article index:
First impressions
Wave Terminology
Issues
My verdict
Screenshots
Screencast
First impressions: What is a Wave?
When Anthony said he scored an invite from Twitter, I couldn’t wait to see what the buzz was about – Google Wave was still relatively unknown and unexplored territory to me at the time.
It still is, but it was before I used it, too.
As stated above, it is basically the retarded child of Gmail, Docs and Orkut with an editing interface that can only be described as somewhere between Wiki-style editing and instant messaging. It’s really hard to explain.
Fuck it, here’s a screenshot:
So do you see where it draws from Gmail and docs in its user interface? Even more Gmail-ish is the assignment of email(?) addresses to @googlewave.com, although I think those are reserved for waves/blips.
I also said it was like Orkut, Wikipedia and IM: everybody can edit any wave (unless there’s some “read-only” checkbox I haven’t seen yet), and like IM, the waves/blips are directed towards one or more people in a social-networking manner, instantaneously.
Here’s the creepy factor: you can see what people are typing before it is officially published. I found that to be a little weird. Goodbye, moments of typing “fuck you I’m not coming to work today and I’m hungover” before hitting backspace a few times and typing “I’m feeling under the weather” in a conversation to my boss. In a wave, this would get me fired.
Here’s where I freely edited the top blip in someone else’s wave:
From what I’ve seen, nobody really knows what the hell is going on in Google Wave, much less what they call everything. But here are the basics: a wave is a thread of blips. A blip is a multimedia message, that is, a rich textual message containing multimedia (duh).
And, for the creation of these extravagant new evolutions in online collaboration, Google has designed the ultimate clickable GUI component to begin one of these innovative new “Waves”:
(sarcasm fully intended)
Oh, and all the cool wavers/surfers/hipsters/testers use “Google \/\/ave”(backslash-forward slash-backslash-forward slash-a-v-e) to refer to the product. You can see why I don’t.
Spam spam spam! I waltzed right up to someone else’s wave/blip and added my own line to it. I could have easily added a link or files as well, and with the handy-dandy Wave API freely available to use, spammers and hacked accounts could tune Wave into the biggest spamfest since Twitter.
And I know we’ve ripped on Google for vague privacy policies before here, but Google Wave’s privacy policy keeps mentioning “offline storage” as a permanent storage of all my retarded waves, including smiling bob up above.
Since could waves also contain emails, files (read: warez) and even untyped/unpublished “nah, I’d better not say that” content, the “stored for life” offline storage clauses within the privacy policy is a little disconcerting to say the least. I don’t like my drunken waves being stored in a nuke-proof underground safe somewhere.
For a Google product in “beta”/preview, it’s very stable. All the JavaScript seems to be bug-free, even in the obscure browsers I rigorously tested Wave in in an effort to find flaws. The keyboard shortcuts are the best I’ve ever seen in a web app: Google’s devs have clearly done their homework for the programming of this app.
I almost don’t see the need for any of this besides as a toy that simplifies bouncing between other tools.
On the other hand, everyone thought Twitter was the biggest piece of crap on the web when it first came out, but now everyone uses it. Maybe the same will true for Wave: it could possibly revolutionalize how we collaborate online, and combined with Google’s Chrome OS could be the next generation of computing, placing Google in control of the entire process from the hardware up.
Or, it could become a (to the majority of users) unused tool like Google Docs. Only time will tell, but the invite system seems to indicate popularity like that of Gmail, so it could go big once released.
Random features and screenshots
The editing history timeline is pretty cool
A yes/no/maybe widget. Elementary school love letter deja vu.
Thread blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip blip etc.
Well that’s all for now, no more ripping on Google Wave until they add more features. I hope I cleared things up for users trying to figure out what it is after reading so many vague and screenshot-less reviews on other sites. I would just like to know how this idea was conceived in the first place, personally.
Oh, and if you want an invite, hit us up on Twitter – we still have 20 as of this writing 
First impressions is that Google Wave is (as someone else pointed out) the worst of IM and e-mail … and now Crackbook … I can see where it is leading.
Is the point of software design to build toys or tools?
It makes me softweary.
i too dont know what’s the point of having google wave at the moment.. =)
Can someone send me invite for Wave?
Thanks
changing password takes while to propagate for POP access..
thanks for the article, I am too very concerned about offline data storage with Google Wave. What happens if I send credit card details within a Wave which everyone does with email even though they shouldn’t? Can it be deleted?? — more than likely the answer is No. Very worrying how people are moving more and more onto Internet computing, especially with the press conference on Google Chrome OS today. Very worrying indeed.
Thanks again
Mark
Can you please send me an invite for the Wave. Thank you soo much!
While it seems like it could be an interesting new collaboration and chatting tool among close friends, I would be hesitant to introduce this into a work setting because I could see people being inappropriately tagged into the sensitive materials very easily. Also, “live” typing has been around for years and was a staple part of ICQ chat (people hated it then lol). Google Wave will need to decide whether it is a workplace product or a new Facebook… if it just sort of sits in the middle, people won’t very be quick to make this their #1 form of online interaction.
Some friends and I have been experimenting with Wave, with exactly the same results. We find real-time typing creepy, and the editing function had the effect that any monkey should have been able to predict: the entire Wave, whatever it originally said, now says “Alex likes to eat poop.” “He sure does.” “My name is Alex and I love eating poop.” I mean…duh.
For web conferences you should try http://www.showdocument.com ,
Great for online teaching and collaborating. I use it for working on my designs with other in my field.
Its free and pretty simple – you just upload your file and invite others to view it together.
- Laura W.