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Countdown to Google Wave public beta

DPic [PersonRank 10]

Thursday, September 24, 2009
14 years ago9,498 views

Anyone else excited?

Jhonny [PersonRank 1]

14 years ago #

Not really!
Remember the waiting on Google Voice.
Many people still waiting to get invited.
For that, I am no excited at all.

photoactive [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I'm excited – but what does "100,000" mean?

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Where do you see a countdown?

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

[put at-character here]photoactive, where do you see that?

[put at-character here]TOMHTML, very clearly in my head-- there are 6 days to go!

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

ahaha, just saw http://googlewavecountdown.com/

WebSonic.nl [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Haha nice, I hope to get an invite to! @photoactive: 100.000 is the number of new Google accounts that will open up in a few days.

WebSonic.nl [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

That must be Google wave accounts ofcourse :-)

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Thank you Dpic.

I've a Google Wave account. I've enabled it, played with it for 20 minutes, and that's all. I found that pretty useless, buggy, and not so exceptional that Google tell us it was.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> not so exceptional that Google tell us it was.

Be careful not to confuse the product with the protocol. That would be like saying SMTP sucks just because Hotmail has a bad interface. Or HTTP sucks because Netscape 4 was rubbish.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I still should hope that Google wouldn't fail at implementing their own protocol...if Google's implementation sucks, i would think it says something about the Wave protocol

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

It is officially past midnight PST (googleplex time)

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I agree with DPic. The interface is extremely confusing and difficult to use. A lot of people will be disappointed and the hype won't help Google too much.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I do have high hopes. Since they came out with Gmail i wondered why they didn't create something exactly like Google Wave. Now they have-- i really want it to succeed. Here's to hoping the sluggishness and bugs get combed out

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

two more concerns:

Spam-- will spam become an issue?

Identification-- email today is used for id on almost all websites. how are contact ID's managed?

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

According to this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8280864.stm

invites will go out at 16:00 BST that's 11:00 AM EST and 8:00 AM PST (googleples time).

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

"Google will open about 100 000 new Google Wave accounts to the general public in;
YAY!"

http://googlewavecountdown.com/

inportb [PersonRank 0]

14 years ago #

Wave spam seems to be pretty resource-intensive to generate. It'd cost more to spam a wave.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I was thinking the same thing, but just because it's hard now isn't enough to say it wont become a problem ever, or even soon.

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I can't believe so much people want a Google wave invite.
In 2004, when I heard about Gmail invite, I wanted one because everyboday was saying "it's great! free! it works really good and it's fast!".
Today, almost every beta tester (including me) say "Google Wave is a good idea but actual implementation sucks, it's slow, really buggy, not so useful afterall, ..." and everybody still want one account.
WHY???

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I think people are saying it's slow and buggy but is nevertheless really useful.

jeromeflipo@wavesandbox.com [PersonRank 0]

14 years ago #

[put at-character here]TOMHTML
That's exactly what I've been saying for weeks. I think that could be a very bad start for the product: once most early adopters have made up their mind and think of the early version as "slow, buggy and not very useful", it should be very hard to convince them to come back for the next releases.

I won't promote Wave until they offer a lighter/minimalist version (icons, gadgets, colors...). I'm very comfortable with Friendfeed which is said to be messy, so I seriously doubt of Wave's success with newbies.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

the concern was posed here earlier http://mashable.com/2009/09/16/google-wave-debut/

jerome, do you have invites?? xD

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

This is the first time i've been excited about a Google product in a while. You can tell because im actually refreshing the forum every five seconds =P

There had been quite a lull in exciting Google releases. When do we get platypus/gdrive/cosmo/whatever i's gonna be called!? xD

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

It is now 7 PM EST which is past 9 AM for the Wave Team in Australia

/me refreshes inbox furiously

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Okay, so i've just outlined my top 10 concerns with Google Wave
http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2009/09/things-to-consider-with-google-wave.html

I was going to make this in another thread, but i would've felt bad for it being the third active Wave thread here. I still have to apologizing for the blogspam, and for this being my fourth post in a row!

<<Please forgive me in advance if i'm speaking too soon; i'm still waiting for an invitation of my own.

Complexity
Wave is advanced, but will users be able to grasp it fully? Even email is confusing to some people. Google usually does an amazing job at designing user interfaces, but i wonder if Wave will feel heavy due simply to its complexity.

Overall Stability
Google Wave, the client, seems to still be buggy and slow according to many people. I'm sure they will work it all out, but if it's this hard for Google to implement their own protocol, that might be saying something about the future of it.

Desktop Application
When will someone create a desktop client? I hope they haven't made it too hard to do so.

Social Networking
Many people say it will be the Facebook/Twitter killer, but let's keep in mind that, just like email, Google Wave is a communication platform which makes it a very closed network. Is it possible for Wave to replace the functionality of social networking sites that require information such as groups to be much more publicly accessible? Perhaps it is possible through applications, which might be a better model anyways.

Instant Messaging
Wave is a much better communication method than email and IM because of both it's structure and instant character-by-character transmission, but how will that affect other networks like Jabber (XMPP) which is used for Google Talk? Will applications like Pidgin and Empathy be able to implement some sort of IM-only Wave protocol support, or will other networks be able to integrate well into Wave?

Multimedia Content
Text is wonderful, but much of our communication is shifting towards audio and video calls online, and although there are Google Wave applications that support it, it doesn't look like Wave itself will handle it in and special way.

Spam
Has it been considered? I'd like to know now that spam won't end up being worse on Wave than email. Although it is more difficult to spam wave currently, in the future those technical obstacles may have been overcome, and the problem could be worse than today.

Identification
Email today is used for ID on almost all websites. How are contact ID's managed? Google has been playing with tools like OpenID, OAuth, and WebFinger; will those be incorporated into Wave?

Data Portability
This is less of a concern for two reasons. One because Google's Data Liberation Front seems appropriately considerate of us being in control of our own information, and two because if the next and last concern is a problem, it might far overshadow this one.

Competition
Google Wave is much more advanced than email, and that complexity makes it harder to implement. This might drive power upwards, and be very anti-competitive. We could be limited to a few Wave providers, and we might all just have to use Google for the applications they have.>>

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Invites have officially begun! http://twitter.com/twephanie/status/4512348508

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

cross-confirmed http://twitter.com/larsras/status/4512333259

Also, gotta get the milti-post merging working. I don't know if i can live with myself if someone doesn't post before my next reply...

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Has anyone received their invite yet?

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Been following on twitter and not even everyone who had the developer preview has gotten it yet. So hard to be patient >,<

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

blog updates:

http://googlewebtoolkit.blogspot.com/2009/09/riding-google-wave.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWMVzhXwh-I

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I was in the dev preview and have my account on the wave.google.com now too. Invites are not sent instantly to people that users choose to invite.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

right, right, they're just "nominations"

seems like twitter is not getting a lot of posts saying people have received their invite trying to ask if those people are all from the dev preview or waiting list

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Looks like these people are indeed from the waiting list and not jsut the dev preview now.

One question left, why did they get their before me!?

beussery [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

http://www.beussery.com/blog

beussery [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

OUT :)
http://picasaweb.google.com/beussery/GoogleWaveInvites#5387460470705520018

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

/me begins tearing out his own hair

beussery [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

DPic, try to be calm :)

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

yes, yes, i know, i know why, why they didn't give me an invite. it's a-- it's a test, a psychological test. they want-- they want to see what will happen to me. i'll show them. i'll be calm. it's okay. it's just a test. O.O

Libran Lover [PersonRank 4]

14 years ago #

I am not a developer and never had a sandbox account. I added my name to the request queue on day 1 and volunteered to provide feedback. I got my invite about 20 minutes ago.

Libran Lover [PersonRank 4]

14 years ago #

And I have to say: after waiting all day for the invite and having signed in now, my Wave home feels rather desolate and lonely. None of my friends are on Wave yet...

MZaza [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I guess you can send us some invites?
So you don't feel lonely ;)

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/161039.html

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

...did you really have to start ANOTHER thread?

MZaza [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I guess not, I just can't wait. So I thought another post would get some more attention.

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

selfish! Look at how hard i've been trying! http://twitter.com/DPic

....it's actually really pathetic Dx

WebSonic.nl [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Haha you are realy trying hard DPic :-). I haven't had one either yet.

MZaza [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

lol :D ya you've been trying hard
But I don't know anyone except for 1 friend and the blogoscoped users who may know about Google Wave, so that was the best place for me to start from.

beussery [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

#2 on Twitter:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22Google+Wave%22+OR+Wave

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I've now been invited by like 4 people and supposedly after someone nominates you it takes less than an hour to get the actual invitation. I'm yet to see anything and an hour will soon pass...

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

based on this, it seems invitations can be passed on! sweet! http://www.google.com/support/wave/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=162407

Does anybody have a copy of the invitation email they received?

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Alright so my prowling may have paid off. I should have a few invites headed my way, but i'm not going to stay awake waiting any later. If they're not here by morning...we're not even going to think about that

Anyways, if there's anyone who deserves these things, it's you blogoscoped members, so, all my spare invitations will go to you guys in order of your personrank =]

http://blogoscoped.com/forum/personrank.html

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

[put at-character here]Brian : I've a Google Wave sandbox account, but I don't see the Wave about invites. Where did you get it?

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> Where did you get it?

Mine came into the Gmail account which I used for my Google Wave Sandbox invite.

[Edit: No, I don't have any spare invites.]

toml [PersonRank 6]

14 years ago #

tony do you have any left invites. I need one for my work, so please if you can send me one to gtlech at gmaildotcom

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

This thread continues at
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/160870.html

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