I just received an invitation to preview Google Wave. I don't remember asking for the invitation, but I signed up anyway.
And now I have no idea what I'm looking at.
The last time the Internet had me this confused was in 1994, when I first saw the predecessor to Netscape Navigator, an application called Mosaic, at the computer lab in college.
Then, like now, I had a vague idea of what was going on. Though I didn't know what http:// meant in '94, I at least recognized the nomenclature, having used FTP and Gopher (remember that?) for a few years already.
Similarly, Google Wave appears to have some familiar controls and keywords, but I only partially understand its point. This is a collaborative tool, sort of like Basecamp, that lets users work together in real time on a series of projects. It's not immediately obvious to me when and in what practical applications I would use it.
Google, of course, has an FAQ, which starts with the obvious question, "What is Google Wave?"
The answer?
Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless -- in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is a conversation with multiple participants -- participants are people added to a wave to discuss and collaborate on its content. Participants can reply any time and anywhere within a wave, and they can edit content and add more participants as a wave develops. It's also possible to rewind waves with the playback functionality, to see what happened, and when.
Oh, that makes total sense!
Just kidding. Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet this morning, but I now only feel slightly less confused.
I'm sure I'll figure it out if I give it a try, and my inner F.O.M.O. (Fear Of Missing Out) knows that I won't give up this easily. Though if this product was put out by any company other than Google, I'd be gone by now, since the user interface isn't the most intuitive to a newbie.
Which is one more point I'd like to make before I start doing the Wave. Web users assume that if Google does it, it's gonna be great. I disagree. The company is incredibly innovative, but its bare-bones approach to usability and interface design often rubs me the wrong way.
I like features of Gmail, for example, but the "conversation" approach to mailboxes drives me crazy. It's for reasons like this that I'm in no hurry to ditch my iPhone for an Android device, swap Firefox for Chrome or abandon OS X for Chrome OS whenever that comes out. I love Google Docs for its collaborative tools alone -- and maybe Wave will win me over, too -- but just because Google makes it does it mean it's necessarily awesome.
In the meantime, I'll mess around with Wave a bit more -- at least until my invite for a Google Voice account is accepted. Then I can begin trying to figure out what that is, too.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
