Comments on: Gmail in real-time: Google does the Wave

Google unveils an ambitious project to create what it calls the "e-mail of the future," and the reactions of developers at Google I/O will be telling.

[forever4now]

This is just another example for why I like Google. While not always successful, they are continuously trying to push the bar forward. Likewise for Apple.

[Mr. Dee]

Looks like a useless Outlook wannabe to me.

[The_happy_switcher]

"Looks like a useless Outlook wannabe to me." Then you need new glasses.

[renGek]

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by Mr. Dee May 28, 2009 9:50 AM PDT
Looks like a useless Outlook wannabe to me.
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typical end user type. Can't think beyond today. You're probably the type of user that I have to smack with a bat all the time because they can't understand how things evolve for their own good. Once its evolved then the reaction is "oh now I get it".

[nite41]

I agree 100%.
I like companies that keep moving forward and creating new and better products. Kudos to Google and Apple, and some other companies as well. But not Microsoft.

[robnyack]

I kinda agree with forever4now. big whoop.....WOOHOO....now I can Facebook w/o going to Facebook.

snoozeville.

[jpokorski]

"Looks like a useless Outlook wannabe to me"

I've used Outlook for many many years - once upon a time even managed an Exchange server. Lars hit the nail on the head when he noted that today's e-mail model (Exchange/Outlook) is 40 years old. GMail left Outlook behind several years ago, but it's now apparent that it is merely a transition to Wave. I'm truly excited!

[sujitgr8]

Yes Google wave looks cool. Powerful fracture looks line maintaining context of communication . I have seen such a similar tool. colayer.com . This is looking very mush similar to google wave. I seen the whole wavw video . colayer covers all those featues and its alradya there is the market.

[Hunnter2k3]

Oh god, i have been waiting for this for so long, i remember the screenshot of it a long time ago.

This is almost making me foam at the mouth.

Also looks like we might eventually have a decent replacement for Google Talk and Hello.

[sujitgr8]

Google wave looks cool. Powerful fracture looks line maintaining context of communication . I have seen such a similar tool. colayer.com . This is looking very mush similar to google wave. I seen the whole wavw video . colayer covers all those featues and its alradya there is the market.

[someguy999]

Definitely cool, but looks like another reason our corporate networks will have to block gmail and its related urls.

As if time wasn't already being wasted enough through all of the social networks...

[Squashman2]

I disagree. Some corporations are now using GHS for email and documents. This is definitely geared towards the corporate world. They are trying to take piece of the pie from all the other email and message solutions. Now I know this won't replace say Lotus Notes with Same Time Messaging, but I can see this replacing Exchange and MS Messenger or even Novell's GroupWise suite of apps.

[Kesteral]

The company I work for is moving over to gmail from Lotus Notes by the end of June, and I am very excited. I can see wave as a possible way to do realtime collaboration on projects with some of our other sites in China, the Philippines, and Europe during our regularly scheduled teleconferences.

[SuperReviewer]

No company that does anything legally related can use Gmail as a viable email client since it is too insecure for legal documentation to be transmitted. So basically this is for the artsy start-up business to get by untill they have enough money for a real corporate program like Outlook in conjunction with an enterprise server, etc. Is it cool and way over the top and more than any normal home user wants, Yes, revolutionary? not quite, but does it catch the eye of a hipster living in the city who wants to look important chatting about pictures they took, definitly. Seriously do you people want your inbox looking like a circus of pictures and icons, and buddy lists of all types, with all your data and conversations being sent to Google's servers? Google should stick to serches and stop there let the big kids to the big kid things, and the toddlers can play in the sandbox, if you know what I mean.

[kabweza]

@SuperReviewer, times have changed. I think wave is a great platform even for the corporate. Just because the screenshot above is just a front. I'm sure, like current Gmail, it can be customised.

Whenever somebody gives me their yahoo address, I always look at them again and wonder to myself; 5 years on and he doesn?t know about Gmail??? Since the day Google made emails a conversation, there?s been no reason to use hotmail and yahoo. Even Outlook 2007 can?t match Gmail 2004 lol lol

Seems Google is going to be consuming all social networking competition Microsoft style...

[coyoteamos]

@kabweza You might be wrong, thinking that about Yahoo users. They might know about Gmail but not find it useful, like me. I don't want conversations, I want to sort my email by date received. I can't do that, so I stick to my lovely Yahoo :)

I also can't see Wave as corporate tool. Who guarantees data integrity and backup? Another corporation which will by all means index your content?

[e-diaz]

This is simple. You either sitck with the old model and miss the evolution of communication or you enter into the real time collaborative world. Seriusly, it's a matter of productivity, and this is a tool designed to be productive if the worker wants to be. If he doesn't to be the productive worker you'd hired them to be, your problem is not the platform. Besides, that kind will always find something to be distracted, anyway.

[e-diaz]

This is simple. You either sitck with the old model and miss the evolution of communication or you enter into the real time collaborative world. Seriusly, it's a matter of productivity, and this is a tool designed to be productive if the worker wants to be. If he doesn't to be the productive worker you'd hired them to be, your problem is not the platform. Besides, that kind will always find something to be distracted, anyway.

Plus, if you are worried for backups, data integrity and security, install your own wave in your own servers.

[sujitgr8]

Google wave looks cool. Powerful fracture looks line maintaining context of communication . I have seen such a similar tool. colayer.com . This is looking very mush similar to google wave. I seen the whole wavw video . colayer covers all those featues and its alradya there is the market.

[jessiethe3rd]

Looks like Outlook.

[flickrz]

I second that.

[The_happy_switcher]

I 'un-second' that.

[kahomada]

Are you on crack? That's like saying a Geo Metro and a Ferrari look the same because they both have steering wheels and hoods. You obviously haven't tried Gmail and are probably still cursing the bazillion ads found all over your yahoo or hotmail account, and hate it because you can't find where you put your emails because they aren't in the right folder. Do you still print off your emails and file them in your desk drawer, for safe keeping?

[adamberberich]

look at the GUI? Google's finally taking DESIGN into consideration...that's huge

[mnvader]

looks like iTunes to me, I'll reserve judgment for that when I use it.

[Squashman2]

Now two people have said this looks like Outlook. I don't see how this is anything like Outlook. Gmail doesn't function or Look anything like Outlook.

[jake3373]

Agreed. Google has developed their own email system that is completely different from competitors.

[dgutf]

Outlook? I dont get it, either. This is more like the un-outlook.

[LuvThatCO2]

I was initially going to dismiss it as just a twitter wannabe, but after reading more about it, it does sound interesting. Though I think 'real time' typing is a very bad idea for business communications.

[forever4now]

There is, or at least will be, an option to turn "real time" typing on & off.

You might want to check out the demo video of Google Wave. It really does look interesting.

[hypermark]

Makes a hell of a lot of sense, especially as an open platform play.

My simple net out is that this is a model that deals elegantly with both messages and payloads, where the payloads could be pics, videos, posts, songs, maps, people/product/business listings, etc.

As such, there is a lot of value in how the handling layer processes these messages/payloads, enabling them to be aggregated and/or filtered into logical constructs, like NOW, LOCAL, TYPE, POPULAR, VIRAL, ENGAGING, etc.

I blogged about an application model that is very complimentary to this (and for which I have modeled out six very specific use cases) in a post called:

"Right Here Now" services: weaving a real-time web around status
http://bit.ly/i40h

Check it out if interested.

Mark

[basraw]

Looks like an pretty big IRC room with graphics.

Kind of like taking the Lynx Version of WWW into Mosaic!!!


Nothing new here!

[Bobwojo1]

No thanks, I do not want anyone to see my E-Mail until I'm ready for them to see it and that is when i press the send button.

[forever4now]

You have that option also.

[dnheller]

Great, a unified user interface for even more efficient wasting of time

[knowles2]

Hey I love wasting time. The efficient I am at wasting time the faster the day go by.

[jake3373]

I spend half my day wasting time. Especially with StumbleUpon

[ralfthedog]

I can see lots of potential. I ship images and text back and forth all the time to people I work with. We mostly use email, however, I can see this speeding my work up quite a bit. It could be quite fun for making changes to dialog.

[sujitgr8]

Google wave looks cool. Powerful fracture looks line maintaining context of communication . I have seen such a similar tool. colayer.com . This is looking very mush similar to google wave. I seen the whole wavw video . colayer covers all those featues and its alradya there is the market.

[Super2online]

Looks exactly like Outlook. Click on the inbox on the top left Navigation area and it opens your inbox (or one of the other options) of posts in the center column just like Outlook. Click on one of the threads in your inbox and and you see the entire thread in the right column just like you see the entire email shown in the right column in Outlook. Wasn't to difficult to come up with the framework. It's already been done.

It does look interesting, but we shall have to see how it works.

[jake3373]

Another person who says it looks like Outlook. Google has always been developing their own interfaces. The interface you talked about has been seen in much, much more than just outlook - look at yahoo mail and many other email apps

[marc_90292]

". . . allowing you to send direct messages to online contacts with real-time replies"
What am I missing? I do that with Skype every day - instant response.

[t8]

What you are missing is to have all these things in a unified interface. Mail, real time replies, photos, etc.

[t8]

Google is the best thing that has happened to the Web IMHO.

[senitel10]

I think that this is going to be big, not as big as they might think, but with Google, it's ALWAYS big.

[twitter_1963]

I deal with clients in the 1000 to 30,000 seat range and they will not let anything like this loose on their users desks. Social networking and now this Social Mail (SMail) will NOT work for the average business user.

Now GMAIL is great and it has it's uses BUT BUT BUT it's not for wide enterprise use (yes, there are some wins but I can count them in the 1000 clients I have on 1 hand).

And another but, the concept of re-inventing stuff that works has been around for a while and Google are very innovative. This is not a big broken piece in the enterprise. It is great for people that like to Social Network but not for business... It's too intrusive... Business users should not and must not work that way, it makes them very unproductive. I should know, I see it in my employees...

[jaisongreen]

Google Apps w/ gmail seems like a huge win the more users you have.

1) No client application. How many man hours have been spent just dealing with clients and their email issues.
2) No server infrastructure: Again, man hour black hole.
3) General Administration: GONE, dont have to deal with backups, servers, drive space, etc.

[kabweza]

@jaisongreen


1) No client application. How many man hours have been spent just dealing with clients and their email issues.
- of course there is client application, your browser.

3) General Administration: GONE, dont have to deal with backups, servers, drive space, etc.
- NOT GONE. just less. transferring your email into the clouds doesnt mean no admin @ all. What goes away is the troubleshooting. other admin work stays put.

[sujitgr8]

Google wave looks cool. Powerful fracture looks line maintaining context of communication . I have seen such a similar tool. colayer.com . This is looking very mush similar to google wave. I seen the whole wavw video . colayer covers all those featues and its alradya there is the market.

[databrain]

Im all for this idea if only there is a web app (most certainly will) as well as a desktop app. Call me old fashioned but I prefer desktop applications any day such as Skype or msn or outlook for all my online communications over web apps like Face book or Twitter. I really don't like the idea of having over 100 tabs open on my browser to Handel all my computing activities.

[kabweza]

Moving all computing to the Internet IS the future and aint nobody stopping it. not even Microsoft, they're scrambling to catch up; changing business model, which has evolved around Windows since 3.1.
The times are changing. the bloated Windows desktop has no place in the future. A simple thin netbook running a web browser is all you'l need in a few years.

[forever4now]

Chrome allows you to tear off a browser page to essentially create a stand-alone web app that can be launched like a desktop app.

[databrain]

Im all for this idea if only there is a web app (most certainly will) as well as a desktop app. Call me old fashioned but I prefer desktop applications any day such as Skype or msn or outlook for all my online communications over web apps like Face book or Twitter. I really don't like the idea of having over 100 tabs open on my browser to Handel all my computing activities.

[mehap]

Re: "...with some of our other sites in China, the Philippines, and Europe during our regularly scheduled teleconferences..."

The next step should be the flattening of the globe to get rid of the time differences nuisance...

[ukdavo]

People that have pointed out similarities with the Outlook UI similarities need to take a step back. You're missing the point. From what little I've read, it's all about the APIs - it's about the services that are being provided. Part of the reason that Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps and other online services have taken off is because of the APIs that they released and how third parties integrated them into custom clients, mashups, etc. Outlook is just a thick client for email. You're comparing apples to oranges.

[Anysia]

I have never used outlook, or outlook express, as I had read about the huge security issue with them both, so I can't say one way or another about its appearance as I have only had a passing peek at it. Saying that, the UI might look the same, but I am betting it's not going to have the same vulnerabilities that Outlook or OE had.