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Google Wave Enters Beta

Alex Wiltshire's picture

By Alex Wiltshire

October 1, 2009

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Google’s attempt to reinvent email gets limited public release and shows potential as gaming platform.

100,000 users have received invitations to Google Wave, which features realtime instant messaging and document editing. Users can, for instance, simultaneously discuss and work on the same document remotely. Google first showed Wave off in May this year and claims that it now creates all its internal design documents using Wave.

Because Google has chosen to make most of Wave’s code open-source any developer can create extensions for it, with efforts so far already ranging from trip planning apps to video conference calling. And naturally, developers have produced games on the platform, such as Labpixies’ collaborative take on sudoku and Google’s own Play Chess.

Browser-based, realtime, inherently social and open-source, it’s hard not to see great potential in Wave as a basis to a new breed of online gaming, from RPGs to puzzle games, trivia to strategy games.

We have approached Google for comment from the Wave team as to their attitude to gaming, but received the response that, “They're busy getting the product to scale from 5,000 to one million users.” Google is planning to open Wave to full public access next year.

quietIdentity's picture
On October 2nd quietIdentity said:

Because Google has chosen to make most of Wave’s code open-source any developer can create extensions for it.

Google are better than say Microsoft or Apple in this regard, but you only need to look at their response to a certain developer for Android to see it's a rather thin veneer of hospitality. Not that they aren't great things, but they've still got a ways to go before they reach the level of transparency they so often tout as being important before releasing new products which they then decide to make not so transparent, but their API's are decent nonetheless. The simple web apps you can make in a matter of days with some of their tools are pretty damn impressive.

Of late I've been using Gmail for more and more of my daily PIM and social networking needs. It's actually scary how much certain businesses are relying on some of the tools Google offers. Centralised storage means centralised failure. Most likely I'll use Wave often, Google stuff is generally pretty damned handy.

OmegaVader's picture
On October 2nd OmegaVader said:

I have to say I'm skeptical. They keep saying this'll 'transcend' the way we communicate on the internet...but it doesn't look like much more than a bunch of tools we already have, duct-taped together. Granted I'm only speculating, so I'm welcomed to the possibility that I am sorely wrong. But I am not really interested in ever abandoning my current chat client, email client or social network.

Rorsch's picture
On October 2nd Rorsch said:

Do you think that combining tools in a package is not good enough? Twitter is just the concept of Feeds applied to the masses and look at the success..

OmegaVader's picture
On October 2nd OmegaVader said:

the problem is that Google is trying to introduce a new 'phone' that doesn't do much more than the 'phone' I already have; I use 'phone' as a metaphor because it will potentially suffer from the 'first phone' problem -- there's no point in being the first one to have the phone because you will have no one to call. Wave can only take off if people choose to migrate en masse, as there is no way I'm leaving my, say, current chat client, because all my friends are on there. Being able to do 'collaborative' emails is a very slim incentive to leave my friends behind, and it's very unlikely we'll all unanimously agree to move on.

I don't think it's doomed to failure, but healthy skepticism is due.

As for twitter, I don't use it myself because I find it redundant. I suspect its success, though, is that it's not quite as formal as Facebook, so you can 'subscribe' to people you probably wouldn't friend on facebook. It's basically social-RSS feeds for dummies. It was never out to replace anything in the way Google Wave is, though. If they want it to take off, it better be compatible with services we already use. If I can connect to AIM, check my yahoo mail and look up my facebook profile, Wave's odds of success improve dramatically.

Abaculus's picture
On October 2nd Abaculus said:

Yep, I have to admit I've had the same reaction of "Why bother? I can already do that with other applications" when confronted by MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, GMail, RSS, smartphones... and yet they took off all the same. Always best to wait and see how it pans out though.