Google Bad Day?

I heard about the demise of Google Wave last week and I’ve been reading a large number of the hundreds of blog posts and tweets that accompanied it and continue to do so. I’m not going to try to capture all of these but the TechCrunch and Mashable articles are as good a summary as any.

One article suggested that Google does simple things very well but doesn’t do complex things well, it suggested that where the concept (not necessarily the technology) is simple, such as with search and mail, it flourishes, but where there is more conceptual complexity or a larger leap forward then Google struggles.

I’m not sure that I totally agree with this argument but during the week when Wave was ‘crashing against the shore’ as someone put it I was taking a second attempt at swapping from using iPhone onto an Android device. In this case the Google Nexus One.

My primary motivation for the swap was some rubbish customer service from O2 when trying to change my “bolt on” on my account.

Anyone who has tried this and has texted the number that O2 provide to get a response “you are not subscribed to that bolt on” as a response and then had to deal with a call centre in some far flung country where you get assurances but then find you’re charged for the service you have asked to cancel will understand my frustration.

Anyhow coming back to Android the main downfall of the Nexus One in my opinion is the complete failure of Google to support devices which might need to connect to Wifi networks in ‘work based’ environments and to provide methods to address different ‘proxy’ and network types. There are 623 messages on this thread in the Google Code forum but the upshot is Google did a bad thing omitting this and haven’t addressed it in the 18 months since it was first highlighted. For me this is a ‘show stopper’ and not only did I attempt many of the suggestions and found them unsatisfactory solutions but also having spent this much time on the issue I was not very pleased with how the Android phone is set up considering it doesn’t rely on ‘syncing’ with a PC and therefore the importance of the Wifi connectivity should have been paramount to the success of the device in the workplace.

It would put me off buying it in a corporate capacity or recommending it to others to do so until this is addressed. It doesn’t seem to be affecting the take up for the device by end users but I think Google are missing a big market by not fixing this problem. (and only working with some Wifi networks, e.g. eduroam, is not enough).

It may appear in my blog posts that I’ve got a firm opinion on these things but that’s not the case and I’d like to hear other opinions about how well or badly Google handles the delivery of the more complex. I’d like to think that Google can put Wave and Buzz behind it and start afresh to hit Facebook in the social arena after conducting some good research, or studies research done by others and investigated the area well enough to deliver something that users really want.

I want to end by saying that I used and liked Wave because it did bring something new to the table in terms of allowing the blending of synchronous and asynchronous sharing of ideas and it could have been developed into a strong CRM or mind mapping solution for example, but it wasn’t in itself enough to provide stick-ability. It needed a killer application.  Buzz is in danger of suffering the same fate however I applaud Google for trying though and not a lot of concept stuff becomes commercially viable so accept that and move forward to the next big thing.

Catching the Wave (Oh I know it’s not original!)

I’ve been exploring using Google wave as a tool to help scaffold our work around Digital Scholarship Hackfests. My idea is simple –  i.e. to use wave a tool to capture the ideas forming that takes place before, during and after the hackfest – To help define the context of the work, to help support the discussions and provide a back channel during the development. The next hackfest is planned for the 24th so I’ll keep you posted of how we get on – key things are to get the group on wave, to get the discussion flowing freely and to keep the wave a reasonable size and shape.

I have only been trying wave for a short time but I’m enjoying it. It very simple conceptually but it does seem to have it’s own position. I was suggesting that it will form part of peoples online experience as time evolves.

At the moment it feels a little sterile as most of the conversations are about wave itself, or are people testing the water. It also feels a little chaotic and experimental. All of these things are fine in an emerging technology and I remembering feeling the same way when first experiencing email and conferencing many years ago when they were unrefined and raw. I think that ideas forming may be a crucial part of wave, as will it’s ability to mange complex relationships that used for be part of multiple email threads/discussions. It will also come of age when more people are on board and when etiquette is sorted out around privacy versus openness, and around whether you’re invited or can self join waves (I’d like a model like mail lists where some are open and some require you to be joined by the list moderators). I think the embedding is also fascinating and the ability to embed content from a range of sources will also help this mature into an extremely useful tool, it seems like it may have design applications, also CRM applications, it may replace wiki’s as a media for group and community led creations and it may also extend and complement email and twitter as a tool to manage complex organisational interactions. Finally it may be a tool that will help scaffold discourse and discussion, a bit like cloudworks.

I hope however it finds a home and does something new and that I haven’t thought of yet, something I didn’t know I needed until I used it in anger. Like twitter it enhances my life in small but very pleasant ways.