Category → Google
Google Wave Disappointment
For those of you that are sitting around on pins and needles waiting for an invite to Google Wave, do not waste your time. I was doing the same thing from May until October until some nice gentleman sent me an invite. This invite came in October, over a month ago and so far there is still no one on it. Of the more than 200 people on my Gmail account, only five people are on Google Wave. Of those five people, I have only seen one of them online in a month. I sent messages to all of them and got one response. I am not blaming these people because they are likely doing the same thing as I am… sitting waiting for someone to get online. Google Wave is supposedly opening up their system slowly so that it does not overwhelm them. Unfortunately they have disabled inviting friends and family so you are left with no one to test it on.
The five people on my list are acquaintances that I really do not know that well except for an occasional conversation on Twitter. My heart ache that I have is that after having it for a month, I STILL cannot even test it because I cannot try it out on anyone. Secondly, many people on social networks talk about this as though they are some elitist snob because they have an invite and others do not. They are better people because they have access to this disappointment of a program.
Honestly, Google Wave does not even look that impressive to me. If it has any special functionality, I cannot tell because there is no way to use it. It is so exciting being able to sit in a room with a toy when you cannot show it to anyone. How fun it is to go on a vacation by yourself. I think many of the stories about this program are similar to those that follow and worship celebrities. If it came from Google then it must be angelic and have supernatural powers. If it came from Google then it is automatically good without even trying it. We know that is not true, just look at Google Talk. That program has been out for several years and it still cannot compete with the worst instant messenger out there. I am not trying to bash Google but rather trying to put some perspective in the discussion. Right now, if someone were to ask me how I like Google Wave after having it for a month, I would have to return the question of how they like their girlfriend that they have never spoken to or seen a picture of. It is the same thing here. I have a Google Wave account but cannot do anything on it.
I would say the program is a huge disappointment. I would say the great Google has disappointed us with this system. What is the purpose in opening up a program for testing if you are not going to allow the people to test it? You cannot test a program that you cannot use. After reading hundreds of articles about this great system that will revolutionize the world and replace email, I have to say it is not going to happen. This is sort of like when a new movie comes out and has thousands of commercials and stories about it and then when it finally comes out, it is a disappointment. I will predict from what I can see of Google Wave that it will not replace email like they advertise.
There will be the Google worshippers that will be ‘ga ga’ about it and talk about how Google has saved the world again, but outside of that crowd, it will not become mainstream. I watched the video online about it and I know people. Those that are not Google worshippers will say it is too complicated. Heck, I cannot even get people to try Skype and it is the easiest program around. People want the ‘big button’ to push and do not want to think beyond that. For this reason, Linux will never be mainstream because these people cannot figure this out. This is part of the Apple craze. Their minute 10% market share goes after this crowd that wants to use big buttons. Remember the old America Online commercials? They would say “It is so easy, it is no wonder we’re number one.” Their target audience was those that knew nothing but how to click the big button. This audience is larger than people think. For this reason, I think that Google Wave will not become as big as the prophets proclaim. The Google worshippers will kneel before the Google throne. Many will try it on a short term basis but the vast majority of the people will yawn and go about their way.
This article is not just ‘sour grapes’ as you may think. I’ll admit that I am completely disappointed in Google’s policy of forbidding us from even adding our family on there but that is not what is driving my entire opinion. I just know human nature. I will say that Google does have some pretty good toys but this one will not be a long term success. After looking at it for a month, I have changed my opinion of the system. With my own experiences dealing with those the do not even try new programs, I have to change my prediction that this program will not become mainstream. That is just my opinion but I am VERY certain that it is correct in this case.
Google Wave
Last week I finally received my invite to Google Wave and I have not been able to test it the way I wanted to. The problem is that Google has stopped allowing new invitees to be able to send out invites to others. I think they are on a limited basis with some people but for the most part they are not. A while back, I followed Steph Hannon on Twitter, one of the project managers for Google Wave. On October 9th, 2009 she Tweeted the following message…
Recent invitees do not get to invite others. We will grow from sign-ups and the invite queue. Active users might get invite wave later …
Unfortunately, I received my invite after this date so I am unable to send any invites. In fact, I have been disappointed that I cannot even invite my own family or friends so that I can effectively test it. I do have five contacts that are members as well so I can use it a little. For the record, I do understand this is a limited beta that is not open to the public so I do not want to come across as whining.
So far, I am very satisfied with the functions such as dragging and dropping pictures, Word documents, pdf files, etc directly into the Wave. It does run pretty fast with immediate updates character by character when the other person types. It is sort of impressive considering it is just in beta status. By definition, being in beta testing, it is supposed to have some flakiness and random crashes. By limiting the users, the proliferation of this beta version is slowly rolled out. If they did not do this, it would likely be overwhelmed by the massive number people due to the massive amount of hype it has received.
My first observation of the service is mixed because it has tons of potential while if you have many people in the conversation, it can be overwhelming. I think this service will be wonderful if you are communicating with five or less people simultaneously. If you have more people than this in a single Wave, it could become so busy that you get lost. My negative feelings are solidly outweighed by the positive.
The incredible amount of attention this service has received can be good or bad. Let’s just hope that all the attention stays until the service becomes open to the public. There has been so much attention that many people forget that it is a beta service. People may hear about it so much that they get impatient waiting for an invite. I will have to be honest that I have become impatient myself. Ever since Google Wave announced this upcoming service in May 2009, I signed up for an invite. It took until October for me to get one. This is not a bad thing on Google as much as it is on Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc.
These social sites, have been buzzing for so long in almost an elitist fashion. If you have been a bystander in all this, it seemed as though many people were boasting in a way that seemed like they were better human beings just because they had an invite. Now we know this is not true, but the atmosphere surrounding it, made me become a little frustrated to the point that I was bashing the service in these social networking sites. For this reason, I think it may be a good idea to not release the news of new services to the public until they are closer to release date. Is it possible that people can become so overwhelmed with the hype that it can never live up to it? I think it can.
I hope they can finish up their beta testing very soon before this happens because all the excitement can be lost if too much time elapses. I am very excited for this service while I am also frustrated that my family and friends do not have it. It is sort of like someone buys you a brand new car that you can only drive by yourself in the desert when no one else is around. The future of this service could be very good because the way I hear it, Google plans on making it open source so that other companies can use it in their own systems. this sounds very promising. The reality of this optimism has yet to be seen. I will keep you up to date as this system evolves.
Google Wave Confusion
There seems to be some confusion with Google remembering my gmail account because I have not received my invite yet. A couple days ago they were to send out 100,000 invites for testing and I still have not received mine 
. Just kidding! I am sure that anything that receives the amount of attention this program has, it is likely to be a disappointment. In fact Robert Scoble already blogged about how it was too busy for his eyes to keep up with. He claims that it is overhyped and that would not be a huge surprise since it has been the number one Twitter topic for the last week. I will have to wait until Google gets their records straight and finds my address.
Update August 18, 2009
View Larger Map
I just tried Google Maps for the first time in a while and it is really nice. I was amazed at how well I could see our home in England when we were in the Air Force. The above address it 34 Adastral Close, Felixstowe, Suffolk, England. It is phenomenal how clear and close you can zoom. I am not talking about Google Earth, but rather http://maps.google.com. It lets you save your own maps publicly and private as well as trips. If you make them public, others can search and find your own maps. Also I have been playing around with Google Reader, and Friendfeed since there has been so much hype about the Facebook takeover of Friendfeed.
It is interesting that despite my many railings against Google Fanboys, I have become one. It seems that every time I turn around there is another free toy that I can play with. In fact I am typing this using the Google Chrome browser. My phone has a Google sync application that syncs my Gmail address book, and calendar. Anything that I put on the web, suddenly comes to my phone. This pains me to become a fanboy because I have always had a soft spot for Yahoo since I have been with them from the beginning. It seems that Yahoo has decided to join forces with Microsoft’s Bing.com. Bing is also pretty good at search. I do like to have all of them succeed because I believe competition is always good for the consumer. If you have one dominant player then creativity can suffer. This is funny that I talk about creativity when I am the least creative person on the face of the earth. I am hoping that Bing and Yahoo can finally get to a point where they are competitive again soon.
This morning it rained as I went to work but as usual it was clear and sunny when I got off work. I really hoped that it would stay around until I got off work so I could enjoy it. Our lawn mower broke down or maybe I should say it was purposely destroyed this weekend. I will not elaborate on here as to not embarrass the person that did it. Now we need a new mower just so we can mow the lawn and it is getting tall. I am just hoping that we do not get a fine before we can get the mower replaced.
UPDATE: 19 Aug 2009
I owe this person an apology. No one broke the lawn mower but rather it vibrated some screws out. Since the drive shaft is slightly bent, the mower runs out of balance and vibrates as it runs. I tightened that bolt and mowed three strips and the bolt came back out. So I just wanted to say that I was wrong.
I will be going to Illinois in a couple weeks on a personal trip. I will only be spending the night and then heading back the next day since I need to get back to work. I was supposed to be going to San Antonio on a work related trip this week but I was cut from the list due to financial concerns. I am actually glad I was this time because there are things going on at home that need to be dealt with.
My work has been so overwhelming lately because there are so many things going on as well as having new trainees. It is interesting that I am supposed to be training them and I am a trainee myself. I guess on the bright side, it shows that my supervisor has confidence in me. I will think the glass is half full . With so many things going on at work I often forget where I was. I am the kind of person that likes to take notes and do things in an orderly way. Unfortunately I work in an environment where we put out fires through email and the phone. There is always a crisis going on somewhere in the world that needs our immediate attention. My orderly notes and to do list has degenerated into a pile of yellow sticky notes all over my desk. I hate disorder and confusion. I like to complete a task before starting another but that is impossible in my office. It is amazing how a letter from a General can get our whole office in an uproar. It is similar to stepping on a red ant bed and then watching the swarm. Everyone stop what you are doing and focus on this hang nail the General has. I say this with some humor but there is some truth to it as I guess it should be in this type of environment. Despite my talk about being outside of my comfort zone, I love my job. I feel that what I do is important and I try to do my best. I just wish everyone could be as blessed as I am. I will be in class the next two days so I should be able to see some calm before returning the hyper crazed zoo that is my office.
Well I thought I would post a few words since I have not posted much lately. I love blogging just for the heck of it. Sometimes I vent like a crazed lunatic and sometimes I just want to tell the world about my day. It is funny how I come across people that are polar opposites. Some people are so private and think I am crazy for posting my personal thoughts online. I have people that tell me that “Big Brother” is listening it so you should not post online. I got over that long ago when I found that you could search for ham radio call signs online. Also the County Assessor’s office has pictures of everyone’s home online. There is just too much going on in the world to worry about “Big Brother”. Others think it is cool and wish they could do it themselves. I considered taking the blog down a few days ago but I think I will leave it up. If nothing else, it can be used as comedy when I get into one of my rants. For those that do read, I appreciate it.
Giving up on Gmail
A while back I finally succumbed to the peer pressure and started using Gmail as my email interface. I allowed everyone to convince me of the virtues of dealing with Google since they are only second to Barack Obama, and Apple in their deity (sarcasm). One of the reasons I allowed people to convince me to move to Gmail was because at the time I was considering the purchase of a T-Mobile G1 phone. This phone was suppose to integrate all of its address book over to Gmail since the G1’s operating system was from Google. Over time I grew to enjoy the ability to archive emails and making them searchable later. This cool feature is no longer necessary because both Yahoo Mail and Windows Live (Hotmail) now give you either unlimited, or ever growing storage just like Gmail. All you have to do is create a sub-folder and drag everything over to the new folder. You can search through the email just like you can on Gmail.
Recently I have been noticing a pattern with Gmail freezing up the browser when I try to send a message. Also Gmail makes it difficult to copy and paste from one of its messages. I know… I know… Many of you are saying that my problem is that I am using Internet Explorer. Many of you are saying that my problems will go away if I just use Firefox or Chrome browser. Those browsers have their benefits no doubt but they also have their issues. For example, Firefox does not automatically install the Windows Media plug-in making it difficult to listen to streaming audio that uses Windows Media. Before you start to preach to me about how Microsoft is evil and that you should not use Windows, I will tell you right now, I like Windows and would never use a Mac until their prices become competitive. Secondly some audio streams are meant for Windows Media and require the player to play. Thirdly I really like Windows Media Player and find it is my favorite player.
I do like some of Google’s toys they have but their email is weak in my opinion. One thing that I hate about Gmail is that they do not have margins set on their sides. If you type 200 characters on one line, it does not automatically wrap to the next line at 80 like normal people view them. It makes it difficult to format your email in a certain way because the page is way too wide and not natural as to the way it will be viewed on the other end.
I did like the way Yahoo was for a long time but they too have gone the way of the teenage girls advertising dating services. Also they do not allow POP mail. So I guess it will be Windows Live (Hotmail) that I will be going to. I do have my own domain and they allow me to retrieve my mail through “HTTP” in Outlook and also through the web. Since they have allowed “ever growing” storage, I think they are the one for me at this time. Also I love the Skydrive allowing you to store 25 GB on their server. If I have this all wrong, please tell me. I think all three services are good in their own way so the values and weaknesses are completely subjective. I used Yahoo since 1996 until just a few months ago and may go back if Windows Live does not work out.
Gmail, it has been a fun couple of months but I think I will try something else for now.
Cry Baby Google Worshippers
Man I just experienced the most juvenile crying spell on Flickr a while ago that it made me sick. I was just on a Flickr page and noticed a unanimous crying spell from people that Yahoo has just committed the unpardonable sin…
As of today March 20, 2007 you must now use a Yahoo ID to log into Flickr!
People please hold your children because the evil empire Yahoo has just taken another step to take over the world (cue Vincent Price evil laughter). Why can’t Yahoo be like the savior of the world Google? Lets all cry together!
Yahoo has been a pioneer on the Internet since 1995 just when I signed up for my account and I proudly stick with them. Every where you go it is Google this and Google that. These people in the Tech community are just followers. It is like being in high school when you like this girl but you find out all your friends don’t so you make fun of her. No one can think for themselves.
Yahoo purchased Flickr a couple of years ago and has every right to do what they want with it. They are giving people unlimited photo storage for $25.00 a year. This means you can upload millions of photos.
I do think some of the petty anti Yahoo talk is unfounded though. This sentiment on Digg.com and other websites are completely rediculous. Look, if you like Google then go use them but don’t trash everyone else. I have nothing against Google at all in fact I like them. I just prefer Yahoo. If you really sit back and try to analyse the anti Yahoo comments you will find they are nothing of substance but are all just opinions.
I don’t know why this gets on my nerves so much other than one thing that I can’t stand is a follower. You know the types where one person says something completey stupid and all the others chime it with their vote of support. I know I vent on this occasionally because I think the vast majority of the tech community are just that “followers”.
That is my opinion.