Google Wave More of a Ripple
I was fortunate enough to receive a Google Wave invitation over the weekend. Having watched the promotional videos and listened to the buzz in the blogs and on twitter, I was keen to have a look and see if it stood up to all the hype.
So it was with some excitement that I logged in for the first time yesterday. Initial impressions? Well to be honest I have to say I was a little disappointed.
Google Wave is badged as the future of on-line communication and collaboration, combining email, chat and document management into one single location. This may well be the case but to achieve this you need people to collaborate with and that is the big issue, at present anyway.
You can only collaborate with other Google Wave users and as its currently in limited preview, you may find your contact list a bit restricted. I’m no Billy No Mates and have a gmail contact list of over 400 people but only 3 of these already had Google Wave accounts. An appeal on twitter added a few more but with nothing serious to get our teeth into, we’ve been restricted to having quick conversations which we could easily have achieved through email.
Other issues appeared when trying to run Google Wave in Firefox on Windows. I found it sluggish, buggy and in some instances it would crash completely. I switched to Google Chrome and although it improved things slightly, it wasn’t the snappy interface that you are used to seeing from products like Gmail and Google Reader in Chrome.
Its early days and I will need more time to get into it. It has the potential to be an excellent collaboration tool and will definitely give Apps such as Basecamp and Huddle a run for their money. However until it comes out of limited preview it will be difficult to draw a final conclusion.
So is Google Wave the future of on-line communication and collaboration? Possibly!
Got something to add?
Why not join the discussion and have your say?
By Jez Kay on October 21, 2009 8:19
Actually you know I’ve found it brilliant, when people are up for playing. The possibilities seem endless, as it were. Great implications for planning and brainstorming, could be used in call centres, great “break-out” addition to presentations to encourage audience participation and the list goes on.
My disappointment is something you hinted at. My slant on it though is that people just don’t seem to want to engage, particularly with strangers. Which seems odd to me. Particularly considering the growth of social media. Maybe it’s because it’s so instant. People are bashful about their typing or maybe hung up about something else.
So I’m one of the converted. Absolutely. Which is rare to me. It’s exciting (because it’s live). And it encourages true collaboration, not just rabble-rousing.
Thanks v. much for the post.