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Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

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Deozaan:
It seems odd to me that you're arguing against these features, or at least against their necessity. Do you just not care, or do you actively think they're unnecessary? Have you actually tried to use Wave for the kinds of activities Google claims it's useful for? Because I have. And it's not. IMHO. :D-JavaJones (May 21, 2010, 08:41 PM)
--- End quote ---

I wasn't intending to argue against an exporting feature. Wave has always seemed to be marketed as a solution for the inherent problems of separate hard-copies of documents, so to me taking a wave and turning it back into a piece of paper or a static document seemed to defeat the purpose of putting it on Wave in the first place.

I have not used it on a collaborate project, and I don't have to submit reports to a CEO (or anyone) for approval for what I do, so there were many things which I didn't consider. With your help, I now understand that there are cases where a hard-copy would be extremely useful, though I think part of the problem may be trying to adapt new technology to old ways, instead of creating new ways to use new technology. After all, there may be a solution that neither of us have imagined yet that doesn't involve exporting or printing.

When you present a project for approval to your CEO, do you show him all your notes and recordings of brainstorms and things like that? Of course not, hence the desire to eliminate the extra chatter, etc. And you don't expect your chalkboard or your (paper) notebook to export only the relevant information to a PowerPoint. So what do you do in a real-world environment when you're ready to turn the brainstorming notes and ideas into a presentation to get your project approved? My guess (since I haven't needed to do this, myself) is that you prepare a separate document for him which highlights the relevant information he needs to know to make a wise decision on whether or not to approve the project.

It might not be that difficult to have a brainstorming wave and then an official presentation wave. Or as the case may require, a brainstorming wave and then an official presentation document, such as PDF or PowerPoint. That's not so different from a real-life situation, is it?

Again, I'm not saying that I'm against the option to print or export. I just think since Wave is so new (and early in development) that we may not have fully considered what it was designed to do and how to properly use it.

I know I haven't.

Deozaan:
I've been thinking about it and I've come up with more solutions to the "presentation for a CEO" problem.

You could create a wave and then anything that isn't part of the "final document" would be inside private-replies (in the wave) that everybody except the CEO could see. Thus when the CEO opened the wave, all he would see is the clean project information.

If they implement a printing function, then this would be handy too, because then you could just have a "PrinterAccount" that never gets invited to the private waves, and you could just log in as the PrinterAccount to view the clean stuff and print it or make a presentation with it projected on the white screen.

Admittedly it's a bit of a hack, but it seems easier than having to deal with printing copies or exporting info that could be updated at the last minute, or having to create a separate document from scratch.

EDIT: I bet you could even get a bot that you invite to the wave (but not the private replies) which can parse all the information and export it to another document that's fit to print.

JavaJones:
Yes, that would be workable (private replies). But, as you said, a bit of a hack.

But my real point more is that I don't see it as being enough of an improvement over e.g. Google Docs with notes and chat to justify the necessary hacks... at this time.

- Oshyan

lanux128:
Downloadsquad.com has a story on Google Wave's 1st year blow-over.



• http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/05/29/google-wave-first-birthday-fail/

IainB:
I have been wondering why I get a sense of déjà vu about this discussion. So, I:

* reread all the posts in this discussion;
* took a look at: Welcome to a Wiki for DonationCoders interested in Google Wave!; (As an aside: Why would you have a Wiki about Wave? Why not use Wave itself? We can, now that it is "open to the public".)
* read the Google blog post Happy 1st birthday, Google Wave!;
* watched the vid Google Wave at Google IO 2010 Keynote;
* reread the few waves that reflect my own use of Wave;
* did some thinking.During the thinking part, it dawned on me: the discussion in this thread and all of the things referred to are rather like the discussion between the two characters (Vladimir and Estragon) in the play "Waiting for Godot". At one point they discuss what Godot (who, though he is the central subject of most of their discussion never actually appears) is going to do for them when he arrives. Vladimir, who is usually pretty sharp, struggles to remember and then says, "Oh ... nothing very definite."
When we try to establish what Wave is and what it is good for, we arrive at "nothing very definite", yet we are apparently allowing this indefinite/undefined THING to occupy a good deal of our cognitive surplus. Why is that?

Indeed, in the vid clip above, Lars Rasmussen (Manager, Google Wave) starts off by saying how "...today Google Wave is a product that people are using to get productive work done all over the world...we are going to show you that today with a 90-minute video...I'm just kidding, we're not going to do that." In fact, Lars leaves us none the wiser as to exactly what concrete use Wave is for anything at all, though it seems that "everybody's interested in using it"  - or words to that effect. That looks like an appeal to the consensus - a logical fallacy that proves nothing.

Like I said in an earlier post in this discussion, Wave seems to be a really neat solution looking for a problem - it's a Thneed.
I suppose it could also be a modern version of the emperor's new clothes. Because those terribly clever people over at Google have invented something that neither they nor us seem able to define, we are perhaps reluctant to admit - for fear of seeming stupid - that we can't actually see any value in it. So we don't state the obvious, and instead settle for obligingly discussing around the nebulosity of the thing, in the hope that perhaps it will become clearer to us and then perhaps our limited intelligences will be able to comprehend.    :D

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