lotsa Firefly fans working @ Google...

[Darren Dirt]

...as evidenced by the upcoming "Google Wave".

http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

Microsoft's hand may have been moved by the launch of Wolfram|Alpha last week, a smart calculator that got mixed reviews but which shows much promise in connecting people to knowledge.

In these opening salvos the first round clearly goes to Wave, its name a homage to the science fiction of Joss Whedon's Firefly oeuvre (Google's 50 Sydney developers are big fans of the Hollywood wunderkind). A "wave" in the "Whedonverse" was an electronic communication; a Google developer described Wave as "e-mail on crack".

- http://www.itnews.com.au/News/146353,opinion-googles-wave-drowns-the-bling-in-microsofts-bing.aspx

[Thorin]

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Imagine editing a controversial Wikipedia article in this fashion - as you're typing that elephants are, in fact, not extinct, someone else is deleting your text character by character immediately as you type it!

[Darren Dirt]

R.I.P. Google Wave -- we [really!] "hardly knew you"


http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/202647/google_wave_promised_a_tsunami_delivered_a_ripple.html

Google has pulled the plug on Google Wave. The communication and collaboration tool promised to revolutionize communication--with Google arrogantly asserting that Wave would supersede e-mail the same way the computer made the typewriter obsolete once upon a time. Unfortunately, nobody really understood what to do with Wave, and Google never gave any useful guidance to clarify it.

everyone was excited and anxious to be a part of the Google Wave revolution, but nobody could explain what exactly it did or how it would be of any benefit to anyone.

There was a lot of potential in the Google Wave concept. Businesses could use a platform that can seamlessly integrate e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, office productivity, and collaboration in a single tool. The unique aspects of Wave communications, combined with the fact that it was a cloud-based service that users could access from anywhere, gave the service promise.

Ultimately, Google Wave is sort of like the futuristic prototype vehicles you see at an auto show. The manufacturer never really intends for that specific vehicle to see production, but the prototype is an effective test platform to try new technologies and figure out what works. Google Wave is dead, but the features and functions that comprised it will most likely live on--incorporated into other Google offerings such as the rumored Google Me.

[Mr. Analog]

Wave had potential for some people but the way they rolled it out left a lot of question marks over peoples heads.

Then when people finally got into it they found a lot of performance issues (I know I did).

The one thing it did well was online doc collaboration but this feature has been in Google Docs for a while now.