We were big adopters of Google Wave at work, even in its BETA version.
We thrilled at the excitement of synchronised editing from different places in the country. We were intrigued by the action replay of what we had composed. We found it a great way to live blog from conferences, creating back channels that exceeded 140 characters. Version control and the multiple ‘FW’ email was a thing of the past. We liked ‘getting stuff done with people’ (snappy, Google, snappy).
I liked being part of a new technology. And I liked that fact that my work liked that, too. I even liked the excitement of finally being invited when I had waited so long for an invite. Ah, happy days….
But, it’s goodbye to the Wave [BBC news story]. And, despite all the promise of mutual editing sessions and parachuting into discussions, a bit of me isn’t too sorry to see Wave slosh off into the horizon.
I won’t miss the lack of export function from Word – because your writing can’t stay surfing the wave forever.
I won’t miss importing text and watching my formatting turn to spaghetti. Sigh.
I won’t miss the trickiness of inviting people, even after they opened up the Wave to just anyone;-) Not everyone wants to be on gMail, y’know.
And how often do you need to write at exactly the same time as someone else? Not as often as we thought, is the answer.
Back to the wiki, I guess, where at least anyone can find it, anyone can write in it, I can copy and paste tidily – and I can make letters spin if I want to.
karen spencer 