Lessons Google Can Learn From Wave’s Failure

I was saddened to hear that Google is ceasing development of Google Wave. I was excited to try it as soon as I saw the video demonstration Google released on their website. Sadly, once I actually started using Wave, I realized that it was an amazing piece of technology that just didn't work as a standalone product. It was rare that I could come up with a use for Wave that couldn't be done just as easily in Gmail. The biggest problem, though, was one the author of the linked article above points out:

Staggered invite releases can make sense for certain product launches. It made sense for Gmail, considering the amount of storage each user was getting (relative to the other webmail services at the time) and consideration for scaling and spam issues. The same can be said for Google Voice. However, for a tool like Wave, which is by definition a collaborative tool, it really needed to be launched to a large audience.

It may not have been feasible for Google to push Wave out to the entire world on the first shot, but there is absolutely no good reason it took nine months to go from initial invites to open access. Not when you add four months of hype in front of the initial launch. Had Google waited to make sure it had the resources to scale and support Wave or to bring it to Google Apps users before launching the product, the company might have better capitalized on the early hype

My hope is that Google will fold many of Wave's features into Gmail over the coming years, although they've all ready used some of the technology in other Google products. In the meantime, though Zenbe Shareflow doesn't do quite everything that Wave does, it seems a bit easier to use.

First, an Explanation

So my wife and I are at home one afternoon when we get a call from Nielsen. We've been selected to be a Nielsen family. They inform us that they'll be calling back soon to talk to us more about it. Great, my wife and I think. This'll be fun.

Nielsen calls us back, and they ask me about our setup. I should explain that I've hooked together an Xbox, a PlayStation 2, a GameCube, a DVR, and a DVD recorder. The lady I'm talking to clearly sounds concerned when I mention the recorder. I can already tell by the sound of her voice that this probably isn't going to work out. She says they'll need to send an engineer out to our house to see what's what.

The engineer shows up at our house while we're eating lunch, walks into our TV room, takes one look at the DVD recorder, and tells us that it's not possible. He explains that the engineers at Nielsen are still trying to figure out what to do about DVD recorders. So he has to call in and tell them that we are a no-go. When the office asks him why they can't use us, he tells them that we're "Technically Difficult." My wife and I both had a good laugh at that, and my mother-in-law said that she had known that about my wife for years.

Somehow that seemed a fitting description of this blog. It will be technically difficult to catagorize it or me. I hope you find something of interest here.