A Wave Wipe Out

June 1, 2009

I tracked down “A Curmudgeonly Look at Google Wave” on DaniWeb here after a person mentioned it on a phone call this afternoon. I must admit. I have not given Google Wave too much thought. It struck me as a container for integrated communication services. I will be going into this metaphor at my talk on Thursday morning at the Gilbane Conference in San Francisco. I am neutral about Wave because it is a response to Twitter, SharePoint, and Microsoft. The DaniWeb author is also on the fence even though the word “curmudgeonly” suggests a slight negative slant. For me the most interesting comment in the write up was:

After watching the presentation, I wondered about the complexity of the interface and the number of adjustments you could make, and if this could have an impact on mass adoption (say on the scale of Gmail). Twitter is about as simple as you can get, 140 character limit and click Send and some people still have trouble understanding the nuances. Wave is a magnitude more complex and I wonder if this will hold back adoption beyond the technical elite.

Yep, complexity. Googlers sprint from sales lead to sales lead insisting that search is simple. Wave isn’t, at least not now. Very Microsofty in my opinion.

Stephen Arnold, June 5, 2009

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Google, News, Social, Technology

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.