Google Wave- Anyone impressed .. yet?

I was one of the most excited people when I received the much coveted invitation to open an account on Google Wave. This was one of the most hyped product google ever launched. I was very impressed with the product rollout

See the youtube video of the product roll out and you would be really impressed.




I have been using (or rather trying to use) google wave for more than a few months now. I kept on convincing myself that it is a great product and with time it will become better since this is just a Beta version. But, seems like Google Wave might not create the kind of impact Gmail created.

Google Wave claimed that it will change the way we think about communication. Electronic communication is just an extension of the traditional form of communication. In other words, instead of writing a letter on a piece of paper and mailing it to someone else's address, email allows us to open a browser (read page) and mail it to a unique address. So if we had to start over, how would the communication behavior look like?

I don't think that if we have to start the style of communication all over again, then it is going to look anything like Google Wave. For one reason, that understanding how to work Google Wave is so complicated (and I am an IT professional) that it seems that you would require a really strong determination and reasonably good technology savviness just to have a normal communication. How can that be anything to look forward to?

It seems that google is missing the point. People generally don't like technology. Thats why Microsoft was successful. Remember those days before microsoft? Just booting the computer using a bootable disk on a command prompt on DOS operating system? And then it all changed when you didn't have to remember those syntaxes anymore and you could do almost anything with click of a mouse and operating system was UI based.

So, if using Google Wave is going to be complex and difficult to manage, very likely people won't like it.

Anyway, lets see what happens. I love google and its products. I want them to be successful, but Google Wave so far is not impressing me.

Microsoft One-Note

I just installed Microsoft One-note application. This is a one stop shop for managing your scraps, notes, meeting minutes and in general, helps organize your information 'on the fly' . I find it pretty darn cool, but you can't talk about Microsoft without criticizing their same ol' ways of doing things.

1. The installation file is 200 MB.. which is almost as heavy as office org. Really 200 MB for a notes management software?
2. It is licenced. Microsoft offers a 60 day trial, but we all know how things go from there. The full version is priced at $ 99.95 on Microsoft.com and you may get a cheaper deal on other online stores.

While I do like the software, I can't imagine competitors like google (who knew that google would become a Microsoft competitor), and other open source vendors won't come up with a free and open source product to compete with One-Note.

I think its just a matter of time.