Google Wave Versus the Rest, Feature by Feature
lifehacker.com
lifehacker.com
If it was fantastic, if it was disruptive, if it was the best thing since sliced bread, you wouldn't have to do this. All my friends would already be telling me about how fantastic it was. With Google Wave, all my friends said "meh" or "is this it?".
It might become awesome with a better client or a different client or different service sthat plug into it, but as long as it remains the way it is now, it is completely uninteresting. It's not news.
Another funny thing, this article compares Google Wave to services it explicitly distinguishes itself from. How about comparing it to other online collaboration tools that are actually in the same niche? Or would that turn out too negatively for Google Wave and spoil the hype?
This point could not be more clearly illustrated than by the fact that I can't give away invites for love or money. I've got 40+ in a Wave right now. I don't remember Gmail letting up on being desirable until it went public.
Enable authentication via Active Directory and Wave can be a SharePoint killer, not to mention how it could cut the volume of internal email in the corporate world. One big thing I would like to see is how hard a company-hosted Wave becomes to manage once you get a lot of content which is a big pain with systems like SharePoint.
As Wave is/will be open-source I see an opportunity for those who want to bring it inside corporate environments. I don't think Google can do that, the model needed to sell to and support the corporate world is not in its DNA.
The man who invented sliced bread didn't make it popular. It was initially viewed as a bad idea. Acceptance required the selling efforts of Wonder Bread, and even then it took a number of years before most consumers decided that it was a good idea.
History is rife with examples of products and services that became incredibly popular, but had slow uptake. Lack of initial acceptance proves almost nothing about the usefulness, quality, or long-term viability of the product.
I'm not making any predictions about Wave. I know I'd be trying it for a volunteer project I'm working on if it had better bridges too and from email.