Google waved and people craned their neck to see (day 97)

Google Wave made a splash.  It broke on the beach of cloud tools.   It was a private beach though everyone could see something was going on from the parking lot.  Soon there were paparazzi posting unauthorized pictures, and who you knew became something to be evaluated and mined.   This has happened before.  I remember not having a gmail address.  I remember who did.  I remember how I became in.  How early was I into the wave?  What number was I?  I want to know but much like my Francis Bacon degree of separation (2),  I wonder what such a number really buys me besides social anxiety.  Soon everyone will be in the wave and we'll all be wondering what we're supposed to be doing.

I don't think I've ever opened a tool that confused me as much as Google Wave did at first glance.  It really stumped me.  The feeling was uncanny...like familiar and foreign at the same time and mixed with a unsatisfied anticipation.  I clicked and felt really lonely.  I added some people to my wave.  I said some mundane things like 'what is this for'?  I forgot about it.  I read a report about it.  I came back to it.  There were more people so it felt less crazy to say something less mundane.

I've now figured out that Google Wave is a sort of mix of email,wiki, google docs, and IM.  It's a mix of synchronous and asynchronous.   It may be a replacement for email but the average wave message seems to have more commitment than the average email.  There seems to be more purpose to the wave and more community.  There also seems to be more longevity to the conversations.   So maybe the workflow is that you 'move' email conversations to the wave when they become too complex for email and you need more collaborative authoring.  

The best part is that it's a protocol so it can be reskinned.

A song for this post.