Thursday, August 05, 2010

Waving goodbye

/gratiutous pun
Google revealed that they are discontinuing Google Wave.
Wave was strange, hard to understand, and a totally amazing idea.
I was sold on it the instant I tried to brainstorm with some friends about a writing group that I run. Wave made it effortless for one person to jot down some ideas and for others to elaborate on them. I edited some pieces in there with a friend, and it was glorious, little ants combing a document for errors, constantly improving it.
More recently I've been working with my future roommates to figure out who is bringing what for our apartment.

Wave is wonderful. I am thankful that Google made it, and I am very sad that after the end of this year it may go away.


My hope for this is that Google rolls this functionality into Gmail. Wave and Gmail would be a wonderful pair. Give an option in the gmail interface to have something as a collaboration (whether it is called a collaboration, a wave, or something completely different is up to them). Basic idea being, I want to be able to communicate like I do in Wave. There are too many unexplored options with it.

Perhaps it is that the idea behind Wave is so wholly digital, so wholly strange and new, that it is just ahead of its time. If so, I look forward to the day when people can get it, work with it, and bring it back. Someone will get this right, maybe Google just didn't have the right timing.

Wave, you will be missed.

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