Google Wave is awesome, but Outlook is safe for a while yet

October 1, 2009

I was fortunate enough to score an invite to the Google Wave preview today, and remembering back to when I watched the keynote from this years Google IO conference in May this year, it was clear then that Wave is way ahead of it’s time:

Before I go any further, I want make one thing clear having been glued to Wave all day: I think Google Wave is awesome; it is the future of email and collaboration.  The thing is, it’s too far ahead of it’s time, and that’s what will hold it back from large-scale mainstream penetration, which is why Outlook is safe. For now.

I don’t want to add to the blogosphere’s echo-chamber with my own review of the hows, whys and wherefores, so instead:

• For a good taster of the technology behind Wave, I’d recommend taking a look at this article,
• If you’re after more in-depth info, straight from horse’s mouth, then the Wave developer wiki is the place to go.
• And, for a good example of how forward thinking organisations like SAP are already looking to leverage the collaborative power of Wave, take a look at the video embedded at the bottom of this post.

Again, let me be clear: I think Google Wave is awesome; it is the future of email and collaboration. The interface looks just like Gmail, except it feels slicker; this might have something to do with the Google Web-Kit front-end, but I’ll leave smarter people than me to comment on that. By way of a quick fly-by, you get your folders on the top-left, contacts on the bottom left; Inbox in the middle column; Active message (“wave”, in parlance) in the right-hand pane. New waves (messages) appear in your Inbox, just like any other email program, except, when you look closely, they’re changing. All the time.

The unread message count (circled in red) is incrementing, and new text creeps across the subtitle of the waves.

This indicates changes, made in realtime, to that wave; or new “blips” (new conversation strands) being added. Realtime, on-the-fly collaboration is quite something to watch – updates, edits and annotations appearing and changing as quickly as you can visually process them. The power of this platform hits you like a, well, like a wave crashing against the shore. Once more, lest you forget my feelings, I think Google Wave is awesome; it is the future of email and collaboration.

Ok; it looks nice; it’s feature rich and it’s generally pretty darn cool. So, why do I say Outlook is safe for a while?

I’m reasonably attuned to dealing with a realtime feed (thanks to Friendfeed), but even now there are times when I do need to hit the pause button. If I take off my rose-coloured, early-adopter geek glasses for a moment, and, instead, put on my “project manager with too many projects” glasses or my “HR advisor in the middle of a round of mass redundancies” glasses, imagining the volume of data that “regular” users are expected to act upon every day, Wave turns into a tidal surge.

Although it’s been described as email on steroids, I actually think Wave falls short right now. It’s too noisy. Where Wave does land some heavy punches is against Sharepoint – which, by the way, is a great product, if so-called implementors would take the time to refine it beyond its out-of-the-box install – creating FAQs, procedures and wiki-like pages was never, easier, more dynamic, or downright fun.

However, if I were to introduce Wave to a “regular” business with regular users as a replacement for Outlook today, those users would Freak Out. Look at today’s version of Outlook – it gives those stressed-out users the tools to control their Inbox; they can prioritise their actions and activities based on keywords, filters and search terms. (Once more, I think Google Wave is awesome; it is the future of email and collaboration.) With Wave, I can’t do that; it all pours in. What’s lacking at the moment is control and filtering of the of the incoming feed.

Yes; I understand that Wave is a preview right now, but, Wave was introduced to the world as “email, invented today”, and as such, it needs to demonstrate to decision makers in “regular” businesses that it can live up to that promise.

One last time, I think Google Wave is awesome; it is the future of email and collaboration but until Wave can give users the same sense of control, management and prioritization of their Inbox that Outlook does, I reckon Outlook is safe; but not for long.

(Footnote – my grateful thanks to Steven Hodson, whose recent post, inspired my use of the “emboldened point emphasis” in this article)

Posted in Google, cloudcomputing, communication, conversations, development