Gmail and Google Wave: Can they be friends?
February 20, 2010 5:59 PM Subscribe
Why isn't Google Wave integrated with Gmail? Is there any chance that it eventually will be?
I was speaking with a friend who worked at Google for a little while, and when I asked him this question, he told me that the folks who developed Wave aren't the same folks who work on Gmail. It would have been a lot of extra work on the part of the Gmail folks to make the two play nice, and since some of the Wave people have suggested that Google Wave is going to be a replacement for email (yeah, right), perhaps the Gmail people weren't entirely stoked about it.
I replied that if the people who develop any new Google application aren't all necessarily on the same page/working on the same projects, I was really surprised that Google Buzz was so tightly integrated with Gmail. He told me that the people who did Buzz are much more tightly linked with the folks who did Gmail.
Given that Google Wave is all about increasing people's ability to collaborate on all kinds of projects, I think it's sadly ironic that they can't, you know, collaborate with other groups at their own company to help their great idea catch on.
Is this true? The guy who explained this to me knows a hell of a lot more about it than I do, but he's the only person I've ever talked to about this sort of thing.
I really think that Wave has the potential to change the face of long distance academic collaboration, and even though people still aren't quite sure how to use it, if it was easier for more folks to get started with Wave, then we could use it to learn how it works together. I've been using it to keep my graduate advisory committee up to date on what I'm doing, and while it hasn't really taken off just yet, we're definitely learning more about its potential.
Is there any way to increase the likelihood that Gmail and Wave will get integrated? Is the Wave gonna break this early, and recede back into the ocean of subpar Google projects?
I was speaking with a friend who worked at Google for a little while, and when I asked him this question, he told me that the folks who developed Wave aren't the same folks who work on Gmail. It would have been a lot of extra work on the part of the Gmail folks to make the two play nice, and since some of the Wave people have suggested that Google Wave is going to be a replacement for email (yeah, right), perhaps the Gmail people weren't entirely stoked about it.
I replied that if the people who develop any new Google application aren't all necessarily on the same page/working on the same projects, I was really surprised that Google Buzz was so tightly integrated with Gmail. He told me that the people who did Buzz are much more tightly linked with the folks who did Gmail.
Given that Google Wave is all about increasing people's ability to collaborate on all kinds of projects, I think it's sadly ironic that they can't, you know, collaborate with other groups at their own company to help their great idea catch on.
Is this true? The guy who explained this to me knows a hell of a lot more about it than I do, but he's the only person I've ever talked to about this sort of thing.
I really think that Wave has the potential to change the face of long distance academic collaboration, and even though people still aren't quite sure how to use it, if it was easier for more folks to get started with Wave, then we could use it to learn how it works together. I've been using it to keep my graduate advisory committee up to date on what I'm doing, and while it hasn't really taken off just yet, we're definitely learning more about its potential.
Is there any way to increase the likelihood that Gmail and Wave will get integrated? Is the Wave gonna break this early, and recede back into the ocean of subpar Google projects?
Buzz is what I thought Wave would be. Like sharkfu said, Wave needs a lot more work before it's actually useful for anything. All of the widgets or whatever they're calling them that are supposed to integrate into Wave don't work properly, or at least didn't when I last looked at Wave. I think that your friends explanation well, explains it. I'd say the only way Wave will get integrated into Gmail is if they are able to get it less "beta-y" and more functional for something other than a glorified GChat.
posted by ishotjr at 6:44 PM on February 20, 2010
posted by ishotjr at 6:44 PM on February 20, 2010
All companies prefer launching new, confusing, and poorly tested products separately without disrupting their dominant products.
Microsoft integrated IE with Windows only when they were being demolished by Netscape. Google integrated Buzz with Gmail to counter the threat from Facebook. Both IE and Buzz are exceedingly horrible products that detract significantly from Windows and Gmail, respectively.
Wave would obviously break Gmail worse than Buzz because Wave is designed for power users, never mind Wave being beta.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:45 PM on February 20, 2010
Microsoft integrated IE with Windows only when they were being demolished by Netscape. Google integrated Buzz with Gmail to counter the threat from Facebook. Both IE and Buzz are exceedingly horrible products that detract significantly from Windows and Gmail, respectively.
Wave would obviously break Gmail worse than Buzz because Wave is designed for power users, never mind Wave being beta.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:45 PM on February 20, 2010
Best answer: I think anyone who knows anything concrete about this would be risking their job/a lawsuit telling you details on it in a public forum. So all you're really going to get here is speculation and general comments on how software releases work.
That being said, this article indicates that at least one of the main reasons Wave doesn't connect to Gmail or indeed any email system is that they're trying to figure out how to keep spam out reliably.
posted by crinklebat at 6:59 PM on February 20, 2010
That being said, this article indicates that at least one of the main reasons Wave doesn't connect to Gmail or indeed any email system is that they're trying to figure out how to keep spam out reliably.
posted by crinklebat at 6:59 PM on February 20, 2010
I think it's sadly ironic that they can't, you know, collaborate with other groups at their own company to help their great idea catch on.
I don't know anything about the particulars, but it is the norm for different groups withing a large company to have different goals and be unable to collaborate. If I had to guess, the Wave project was probably delibrarly kept away from gmail so that the two groups didn't mess with each other.
Google has 20,000 people working fo it. That's a small town. You wouldn't expect every household in a small town to get along and work towards mutual goals, so you can't expect everyone under a corporate banner to get along and work towards mutual goals either.
posted by alana at 7:13 PM on February 20, 2010
I don't know anything about the particulars, but it is the norm for different groups withing a large company to have different goals and be unable to collaborate. If I had to guess, the Wave project was probably delibrarly kept away from gmail so that the two groups didn't mess with each other.
Google has 20,000 people working fo it. That's a small town. You wouldn't expect every household in a small town to get along and work towards mutual goals, so you can't expect everyone under a corporate banner to get along and work towards mutual goals either.
posted by alana at 7:13 PM on February 20, 2010
n × anecdote ≠ data, but I have tried (due to mistaken idealism, in retrospect) to get small two-to-eight-person teams at the same company, even on the same contract, even in the same cubicle farm to collaborate because it would result in an obviously sweet integration. The factors that motivate user-facing software projects also seem to motivate insularity and factionalism. The fact that Gmail and Wave are at the same company makes them less likely to fall in bed with each other, since they're competing for the same upper management resources. The bigger the project, the fiercer the competition.
posted by mindsound at 7:37 PM on February 20, 2010
posted by mindsound at 7:37 PM on February 20, 2010
While I can't really offer any hard data about the integration of Wave with Gmail, I will say that Buzz and Wave are very different beasts.
At the heart of it, Wave is collaborative document editing. You invite a group to come together to work on a common problem and reach a consensus. Be that event planning (where should we go to dinner?), deciding on which features to release in the next version of your software, or keeping a todo list with your group.
On the other hand, Buzz is rich-media content sharing. It's about sharing your activity stream of the things you're doing, finding, publishing... sharing, with a community. We have Facebook and Twitter and Flickr and Youtube and Google Reader and Delicious and all this stuff that we're participating in and sharing with others. If you don't use these services, you're essentially emailing or IMing links to people. If you are using these services, all the people you're sharing them with have to be on that service (or follow your RSS feed or whatever). Buzz breaks down those silos and is primarily a social media aggregator from all of these sites and adds a commenting system on top of it. It's alot easier to put this into your Email client (Gmail) because 1) you're living in Gmail already, 2) If you weren't using these services, you'd be emailing this stuff around, and 3) You've already established alot of connections directly by the people you email. As a result it feels alot more natural.
So, that said, I'll echo what your friend said (That the Wave team and the Gmail team are very separate product teams). I'll also echo what everyone above thus far has said, which is that Wave is very beta-y. Wave is extremely powerful and complex, it currently isn't in a state to feel a natural sense of collaboration that Gmail provides. Buzz, however, is... well, pretty damn simple.
posted by miasma at 8:07 PM on February 20, 2010
At the heart of it, Wave is collaborative document editing. You invite a group to come together to work on a common problem and reach a consensus. Be that event planning (where should we go to dinner?), deciding on which features to release in the next version of your software, or keeping a todo list with your group.
On the other hand, Buzz is rich-media content sharing. It's about sharing your activity stream of the things you're doing, finding, publishing... sharing, with a community. We have Facebook and Twitter and Flickr and Youtube and Google Reader and Delicious and all this stuff that we're participating in and sharing with others. If you don't use these services, you're essentially emailing or IMing links to people. If you are using these services, all the people you're sharing them with have to be on that service (or follow your RSS feed or whatever). Buzz breaks down those silos and is primarily a social media aggregator from all of these sites and adds a commenting system on top of it. It's alot easier to put this into your Email client (Gmail) because 1) you're living in Gmail already, 2) If you weren't using these services, you'd be emailing this stuff around, and 3) You've already established alot of connections directly by the people you email. As a result it feels alot more natural.
So, that said, I'll echo what your friend said (That the Wave team and the Gmail team are very separate product teams). I'll also echo what everyone above thus far has said, which is that Wave is very beta-y. Wave is extremely powerful and complex, it currently isn't in a state to feel a natural sense of collaboration that Gmail provides. Buzz, however, is... well, pretty damn simple.
posted by miasma at 8:07 PM on February 20, 2010
I don't really know that Buzz and wave are really that different. Someone described Buzz as "Wave lite" and that's what it seemed like to me, although I haven't played with Buzz much. Wave might be focused on doc editing, but obviously it could be used for content sharing. Just add the content you want to "share" to a big long document.
But anyway, any answer to this question would really just be speculation, unless someone worked for Google. I'm really curious what's going on there now, what the fallout from Buzz's disastrous launch will be.
posted by delmoi at 12:13 AM on February 21, 2010
But anyway, any answer to this question would really just be speculation, unless someone worked for Google. I'm really curious what's going on there now, what the fallout from Buzz's disastrous launch will be.
posted by delmoi at 12:13 AM on February 21, 2010
Gmail is email.
Buzz is, basically, Twitter.
But Wave is just Wave.
I think that is part of the problem: to get an average punter to appreciate Wave you first of all have to explain them what exactly it does and why they might want to use it. It is a completely new concept to most people so I think that will take at least 20 minutes of their time.
Then you have to tell them how to use the system - bearing in mind that it is quite complex. Another 10 minutes.
Finally you have to get them to start collaborating with a least one other remotely connected person on a task or document. This is the hardest step of all because it has to be led by a user and that user must persuade the others that the whole thing is going to be worth while: sufficiently more worthwhile than just sending around an email or an attached document.
posted by rongorongo at 3:27 AM on February 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
Buzz is, basically, Twitter.
But Wave is just Wave.
I think that is part of the problem: to get an average punter to appreciate Wave you first of all have to explain them what exactly it does and why they might want to use it. It is a completely new concept to most people so I think that will take at least 20 minutes of their time.
Then you have to tell them how to use the system - bearing in mind that it is quite complex. Another 10 minutes.
Finally you have to get them to start collaborating with a least one other remotely connected person on a task or document. This is the hardest step of all because it has to be led by a user and that user must persuade the others that the whole thing is going to be worth while: sufficiently more worthwhile than just sending around an email or an attached document.
posted by rongorongo at 3:27 AM on February 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
On the whole, one of my major disappointments with Google products is how poorly integrated they are. Consider that the word processor and spreadsheet in Google Docs print using entirely different processes. I can never remember from one session to the next which of them uses Acrobat.
Many Google products seem to come from small teams using some form of agile development. Google throws them out there, either carefully through Labs, or recklessly in the manner of Buzz, and then considers integration at some later point. Many exist explicitly labeled "beta" for literally years.
To a broader extent, Wave and other similar products (Basecamp/Highrise, Groove, etc.) often seem more full of promise than practicality. There are steep learning curves and some people just plain balk at accommodating to them, much less liking. I think Wave might benefit from being stripped down closer to Buzz-like functionality and baby-stepped into -- maybe Buzz actually is this conceptually, although I doubt it -- and only eventually unlock or build in more advanced features.
But in general, my expectations of Google products are often that they begin with promise and are surprisingly soon abandoned, e.g. Gears.
posted by dhartung at 4:01 PM on February 21, 2010
Many Google products seem to come from small teams using some form of agile development. Google throws them out there, either carefully through Labs, or recklessly in the manner of Buzz, and then considers integration at some later point. Many exist explicitly labeled "beta" for literally years.
To a broader extent, Wave and other similar products (Basecamp/Highrise, Groove, etc.) often seem more full of promise than practicality. There are steep learning curves and some people just plain balk at accommodating to them, much less liking. I think Wave might benefit from being stripped down closer to Buzz-like functionality and baby-stepped into -- maybe Buzz actually is this conceptually, although I doubt it -- and only eventually unlock or build in more advanced features.
But in general, my expectations of Google products are often that they begin with promise and are surprisingly soon abandoned, e.g. Gears.
posted by dhartung at 4:01 PM on February 21, 2010
Based on the reaction of some fairly tech-savvy people, I don't think Google would be wise to mix gmail and wave.
For me, if I couldn't get Gmail without Wave, I would start migrating my email to my own personal domain and abandon Gmail.
posted by JDHarper at 10:34 PM on February 21, 2010
For me, if I couldn't get Gmail without Wave, I would start migrating my email to my own personal domain and abandon Gmail.
posted by JDHarper at 10:34 PM on February 21, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by sharkfu at 6:40 PM on February 20, 2010