Tech Forum

Anyone seen it?

Impressed?

portseven wrote:Anyone seen it?

Impressed?

I was just reading about it yesterday, it is an intriguing concept.

Demo here: http://wave.google.com/

I'd like to see how it would integrate with traditional email and newsgroups as there will need to be some transition.

RussellHltn wrote:Demo here: [url=http://wave.google.com/]http://wave.google.com/[/URL]

This is the same link as the one in the first post.

mkmurray wrote:This is the same link as the one in the first post.

Oh, I didn't even see the link. I googled for more information.

Wow, I agree about the link in the 1st post. It's nearly undetectable without mousing over it.

I'm pretty impressed with their real-time translator. A few more iterations and we might start seeing inklings of our own "Universal Translator".

RussellHltn wrote:Oh, I didn't even see the link. I googled for more information.

I've gone ahead and made the link more noticeable.

mkmurray wrote:I've gone ahead and made the link more noticeable.

Cheers for that

It's cool though ehh? (Google Wave)

OK, I've had a few hours to think about and digest the demo.

I see it as a powerful collaboration tool that holds a lot of promise. One thing I didn't see is how well it supports the multiple roles that people have. Most individuals have at least two roles: Home and work. It's unusual for someone to be using the same email address for both.

One thing I noticed about Wave is that it allowed a company to set up their own server to secure their conversations. But I'm wondering how this supports multiple roles given that the client is a web browser? Does it allow individuals to have the equivalent of multiple email addresses without burdening their company's server with personal traffic or sending company conversations out to a public server? I see Wave as a direct threat to Outlook/Exchange. And Outlook does support multiple roles (email boxes) at the client end. Another thing that Outlook/Exchange has that I didn't see was calendering. Probably a minor thing to add, but something I think it will need.

The reason I ask is that could have a direct affect on if and how the church would implement such a system. I think the idea of collaboration in a secure environment is going to be very attractive to the church, but how it works in practice depends on how it supports multiple roles for the user while maintaining security.

The first thing that springs to mind on the multiple roles thing, is to ask why are you conducting personal business at work? Most companies I have worked for prohibit that, so why would you want multiple identities?

Taking off the sourpuss hat though And knowing that most people do that anyway, I think multiple identities would just be handled how google mail currently handles it. Just have it pick up several accounts, have rules that put tags on the different accounts as they come in so you can identify them, and use the 'reply as' option.

Either that or just login to different accounts as you need them, I don't see it as a big problem. And I agree with you, this is a compelling alternative to Exchange, if they add calendering, which should be trivial. I think what this has over other Exchange alternatives is that it is not just an Exchange clone like Groupwise or Zimbra, it is bringing some compelling and innovative features to the table.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out, both in how it develops and is taken up by people, also how Microsoft, Novell and IBM respond to it.