I'm not sure Google has anything this "Big Picture" in mind for Wave. I think they may be using the Twitter model of development: Build something kind of cool and let users test it to find their own uses.

Right now, it just seems like email+. In other words, email with the ability to embed some neat widgets.

I've tried to use it like chat, and it's almost completely useless that way.

I've used it to manage a small project and it worked very well as a sophisticated to-do list with hierarchical "conversations" surrounding each bullet point. (A similar conversation over email might have spanned 50-60 messages and would be much harder to track.)

Anyone who has been in on the Twin Cities wave has seen what happens when a real critical mass of users is all on a single wave. It's white noise. One of the advantages of a forum is the ability to ignore threads you're not interested in. Wave tries to point your attention to every update.

I can see some good collaborative possibilities for small teams. As it exists now, I don't see it as a new paradigm or protocol to replace any existing web-based communication.

On Dec 3, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Samir Nassar wrote:

> On 12/3/09 11:15 AM, Zachary Johnson wrote:
>> That's interesting.  I could see a lot of demand for a unified way to create response content on community-based websites.  Especially if you didn't have to create another user login at each one.
>> 
> We hear the demands for a "unified way to create response content on community-based websites" but typically the problem to be solved isn't solvable by new and improved technologies, the problems are the human process.
> 
> No amount of technology is going to really help the problem of people not being aware of where they are logged in to, what tool is appropriate for any given communication circumstance, or basic etiquette. Technology definitely won't inject common sense into people.
> 
> If organizations spent half as much money on technology training, real-life modeling and drafting and maintaining communications (human) standards as they did chasing after newfangled whizbangs and doodads we'd be able to spend time on technology that actually facilitates solving problems.
> 
> That said, Google Wave is a cool doodad, very whizbangy and stuff.
> 
> --
> Samir Nassar
> Web Production Assistant
> University of Minnesota Extension
> Extension Center for Family Development
> 405 Coffey Hall
> 1420 Eckles Ave
> Saint Paul, MN 55108
> 612-625-8668
> <snassar.vcf>