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14 Comments

1. 
   
   Mark Says:
   June 8th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

   When you say this is the ‘big idea’ you’re spot on; it could unify all of my online activity.

   I could bring in sites I subscribe to via RSS, share and comment on posts privately between friends and publicly as part of various Waves. My identity wouldn’t be in doubt as this would be attached to my Google profile… and this is just a simple transformation of how I’d be using the web.

   The fact you can pull in stuff from other sources kinda makes the whole OpenID data portability thing redundant. Rather than using a single login when I visit a variety of sites I manage all of that communication through a series of Waves… I wonder how many businesses are giving their long term plans a serious rethink following this announcement?

   As to what is a website? I think it is the meta-container for the individual containers (or pages) that hold content. These containers define how the content can behave and what you can do to that content. Google Wave represents a meta-container that adds a whole new level of functionality.
2. 
   
   Scott Says:
   June 8th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

   I’m only 32:26 into the video, so unless there’s some big suprise my comments are still valid.

   Wave is replacing old internet technologies that have been around for years, and have kept coming back in a new, more user friendly form. Email and usenet were around before the web. IRC was, and still is, a common way people communicate online. Wave is bringing together all these technologies and putting them into something useful that anyone can use, and be much quicker and more visual.

   It’s not a “web killer”, any more so than Wolfram Alpha is a “Google killer”. It will potentially replace social networking, email, IM etc. But there’s more to the web than social media. It might get rid of personal websites, but web applications will remain.
3. 
   
   Nilhan Says:
   June 8th, 2009 at 5:19 pm

   Agreed Mark. Though, this a starting framework which has the power to bring some big changes. Replacing or improving on existing technologies will be just the start.
4. 
   
   Antony Mayfield Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 5:58 am

   It is indeed a very exciting development. I can’t wait to try it out.

   What I love most is the starting point for this innovation: questioning the analogy upon which the web’s first killer app, email, was based. It was based on the analogy of “snail mail”, i.e. something which was based in the physical world. Email worked – sort of –

   They asked “what if you designed email know, knowing what you know of how the web works”.

   I hope that in some ways that is what we are doing with marketing at iCrossing with our search and social media perspective on marketing. What if you invented marketing now, knowing what we know now about how the web works.
5. 
   
   Chris Eden Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 10:17 am

   Here’s the official (and very long) video from Google presenting Wave.

   I’m still trying to get up to speed with the whole thing but it looks pretty damn good. Do we think that people will remain loyal to other social networking site and services when they have the convenience of this? With the complexity of the web people want convenience and this does just that.

   Nilhan made a good point. Google have nothing to protect, product wise. The likes of Microsoft and other technology providers would never release something like this due to the money that they make out of their existing product range (Outlook, Office etc) and the effect it would have on sales.

   I’ve also just watched the bit about ‘Rosy’. A bot that you can invite into your ‘Wave’ or instant chat conversation that translates for you in real time, so you could effectively have a IM conversation with someone in France both speaking in your native language. That’s going to take the social element of the web to a whole new level!
6. 
   Philip Buxton Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 11:38 am

   Wow. This is about being truly ‘connected’ – not entirely sure our generation can handle it but our kids definitely will and we should all give it a real go!

   The threats to Google are coming thick and fast now and this is evidence they’ll keep innovating to fight it off as best they can. But search is still 95% of their revenues right?
7. 
   
   Mark Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 1:06 pm

   Hmm… I think the only threat to Google is from government regulators poking about. They’re not ‘fighting’ anyone, they’re so far out in front they’re having to cut their own path which Google Wave demonstrates they can do in fine fashion. Perhaps I can’t speak for my generation, but I think I’ll personally be able to handle the innovation.
8. 
   Philip Buxton Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 1:27 pm

   I’m not so sure. Google’s revenues – the thing that pays for all this fantastic innovation – are still derived almost entirely from AdWords. That is entirely dependent on its position as the no. 1 search engine and it rightly sees the rise of tools like Twitter, Wolfram Alpha – and now Bing – as potentially the first signs of services that might dilute that dominance.
9. 
   
   Mark Says:
   June 9th, 2009 at 1:50 pm

   Google has a 90%+ share of natural search, dominates paid and has huge mainstream brand recognition. It is utterly unassailable. WolframAlpha is not functioning in the same space. Bing is another Microsoft rebrand and will be as successful as the last one. Twitter’s main use is among heavy web users and marketers. To say these might challenge Google is a misunderstanding.

   Google can announce Wave way ahead of a launch as a marker to say don’t even bother competing in this space; its userbase guarantees uptake. Wave will allow you to pull in your Twitter, your other social presences and turn them into Waves, neatly obviating both revenue and eventually the need for those other services. Facebook had better hope its brand can sustain it when this steamroller gets moving… its paper valuation certainly won’t.
10. 
    Philip Buxton Says:
    June 9th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    I didn’t say they would challenge Google – I said ‘ tools like Twitter, Wolfram Alpha – and now Bing… [are] potentially the first signs of services that might dilute that dominance.’

    Nothing lasts forever…
11. 
    
    Kelly Godfrey Says:
    June 9th, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    I think Google Wave sounds truly amazing. I love the way its completely open source and they are actively inviting developers to help them ensure its flexibility to straddle all existing internet communication channels.

    To think that in only 2002 I wrote my dissertation on text messaging as a completely new form of communication!

    Technology that helps shape communication like this just blows me away. Go on Google!
12. 
    Philip Buxton Says:
    June 9th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    yep, the pace of change is incredible. a very exciting time to be about I reckon.
13. 
    
    Paul Doleman Says:
    June 9th, 2009 at 3:52 pm

    Yandex, Baidu, Zanox, Twitter, Facebook, Naymz, MeetUp, Yamma, LinkedIn, eTarget.

    Mobile, IPTV, Voice Recoginition, Smart Clothing, Cloud, Biometrics, VRM,

    Personalisation, Local.

    6th Sense! Go check the MIT stuf.

    Privacy, Identity, Regulation, Collaboration, Business Model Evolution.

    If Google has 90% market share, why do I spend 90% of my time elsewhere? THAT’S THE GOOGLE GAP!

    Nobody maintains a position or model forever – check the Fortune 100 from 1950. Google Wave is exciting, convenient easy to use. A delightful aggregation. A  very SMART wrapper.

    IPTV and BSKYB could kill it, Semantic technology and Wolfram could kill it, regulation could kill it, AI could kill it, regulation could kill it, Nokia or Apple could kill it.

    Google, Microsoft, Coke, Nike, are all assailable- thats why I work where I work. Exciting just doesn’t describe it. Innovation can arise anywhere and overnight undermine the establsihed way of doing things.
14. 
    
    Nilhan Says:
    June 10th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    Let’s try and avoid the Google taking over the world stuff for just a moment, so we can really look at the framework put forward by Google. I prefer to think of this as a proposed framework rather than a piece of kit owned by Google or any other corporation. Though’ I suspect Google is in a better position than most to drive mass adoption

    Only Google could have developed this as open-source software. As so many people have mentioned, they had nothing to protect or lose in this space. Most software giants like Microsoft and IBM do.
    While Wave is positioned as a rethink of email and IM, it’s more helpful to think of it as a rethink of the way we communicate with each other based on all the various communication methods that have become an essential part of our lives.

    I think the timing for pushing this out was a bit premature, hence the very poor demo of its mobile capabilities. But you can be fairly confident, mobile integration will be a very big part of the architecture.

    Some random analogies that went through my mind –

    · Blog platforms like word press and blogger – not much different to a regular website but the ease of use especially to participate on another website made a very significant dent in the web as we knew it. Many even predicted that blogs would replace traditional websites – And looking at the Guardian online these days makes it hard to disagree
    · Twitter – Just another Facebook update?
    · Object oriented programming – Better structure to old coding practices or something that allowed for mass participation?

    User driven

    Ultimately to my mind what makes Wave a game changer is it provides the tools for the way we connect and communicate to be user driven. Putting innovation at the hands of the people who use it will be vital to its success. SMS messaging only became a success in the UK because people here chose to use it outside of its designed intention.

    Data ownership, data portability and identity
    I’ve always hated social networks defined by platforms owned by other people. Why do I have to update several different social networks to stay connected? Who owns and controls the data?
    Wave has the potential to let each individual control their part of a collaborative conversation – store it on a different server – and no reasons why this couldn’t be in the cloud. This goes a long way towards solving many of the data ownership and portability issues.

    As for Identity, while there’s nothing here specific to it, creating a framework for connections to be easily established and tracked (remember Google can already do this through Gtalk and email) makes it easier to define identity based on your behaviour and social graph.
    Dare I say it, Wave may even be the catalyst to accelerate VRM style customer vendor relationships.

    Implications for Google’s core business
    Over the last few years we’ve seen an increasing shift towards personalised search results both in the natural listings and paid. One of the barriers to personalisation is contextualisation. We tend to jump around when it comes to searching from topic to topic and keeping up with context can be a nightmare. Putting search functionality (somewhere between user driven search and contextual advertising) within a specific Wave space may allow for much greater contextualisation.

    None of the ideas here may seem radical, this is the first time I’ve seen a cohesive model of what things could look like and a working demo at that. Hats off Google.

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