Good Bye Forums, Here Comes Google Wave!

[VetLegion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

Good Bye forums!

The first time I connected to the internet from home was in 1999. I've
been a heavy user ever since. It fascinates me how little things have
changed since then. It was email, forums, usenet and IM then and it is
email, forums, usenet, IM now.

Plus maybe blogs and social networking sites.

OK, things have changed, but one thing has not: the format of our
discussions. I've spent some time thinking about it and there are some
subtle conclusions I reached. For example, I concluded that flat threads
breed communities, while tree-like threads breed hostility. There are
other technical aspects of discussions that I find interesting but won't
bore you with.

Suffice to say that I see much of what I imagined as "ideal conversation
process" implemented in Google Wave.

This could be big. Finally.

I really like this smiley:

[duke o' york]

I really like this smiley:

Really?

[BlackCat]

Somehow, that smiley makes me want to use this

[Combat Ingrid]

That smiley made me post this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

[Dinner]

I think it has changed a lot since my family got internet around 1990. My dad first had CompuServe which wasn't really the internet and instead was a giant BBS you could sign into with forums for just about everything. Around 1992 we switched to AOL because it was cheaper and allowed you to surf the wider net (not that I really did though). Around 1994 we got a standard internet service provider which is more or less just like everyone uses now except it was dial up.

[SlowwHand]

yada,yada,yada

Get out of here!

[Zopperoni]

Anyone have invites for Google Wave?

[OzzyKP]

Is it that developed yet? Are people starting to use it? If so... I'm with Zopp, send me an invite.

[Zopperoni]

Today (Sep 30), 100,000 invites were sent, so yea, it's live and I'm eager to give it a try

[Felch]

I watched the first five minutes and got bored with the self-congratulating. Can anybody sum up the wonderfulness of Wave in a few concise sentences?

[OzzyKP]

E-mail + Wiki + GoogleCoolness

[-Jrabbit]

Slowly, subtly, in a velvet glove. People requesting their own subjugation.

Google = One World Government
Well done.

[Dinner]

I'll take an invite if anyone has one.

[VetLegion]

I watched the first five minutes and got bored with the self-congratulating. Can anybody sum up the wonderfulness of Wave in a few concise sentences?

I didn't watch the entire video. These are my impressions on why it is cool:

- it combines instant messaging and forums
- it combines flat threads and branching tree-like threads
- it allows easy threadjacking in the positive sense... it is easy to branch off a discussion
- it is people centered, not site centered (I'm not yet sure whether this is good or bad)
- it can be imbedded across sites... it doesn't matter whether you are on Apolyton or CivFanatics any more... if you are in the same discussion, you are in the same discussion

Now, as I said, I saw only a part of the video and I'm not sure about how it all works. But as I described earlier, subtle changes in the format of discussions can make a huge difference in what is the outcome of those discussions. For example, Google's way of inserting comments into a text seems great to me. I'd have to try it to say for sure, of course. If anyone has invites left, drop me a PM