"There may even be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success. The only launches I remember are famous flops like the Segway and Google Wave. Wave is a particularly alarming example, because I think it was actually a great idea that was killed partly by its overdone launch."
I can actually recall the launch of some things that succeeded (ipad & iphone, for example). Still, this reminds me in some way of Wave. When wave was launching there was a lot of hyperbolic explanations by people who didn't seem to understand what they were describing. realtime collaboration-communication hybrid that's really more of a cloud based protocol than a app. The app itself is just a proof of concept People either didn't get it or made unlikely assumptions about what it was.
Something about all this excitement pre-reveal feels wrong to me. Especially since this sounds like such a big, long term project.