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Post by eojuri on Apr 18, 2013 19:04:25 GMT -5
2. What explanation can you give for why Google Wave failed? .... Also touched on by others was the privacy issue. I too was a bit put off by the character-by-character transmission of messages as well as the private messaging tool. I agree with my other classmates who thought that this seemed a bit awkward. While I'm sure the private messaging worked just fine, the fact that the message would still appear in the user's own Wave thread might look a bit confusing, and many users might be too paranoid to implement it effectively. .... There is something cool to me about character-by-character transmission, as if I'm watching an action-spy movie or something. But practically speaking, I think you're right about it being awkward. I wonder whether was feedback concerning this feature during the short time that Wave was in operation. |
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Post by eojuri on Apr 18, 2013 19:15:01 GMT -5
What explanation can you give for why Google Wave failed? Although seemingly simple, Google Wave is actually overly complex, overloading users with multiple functions to remember and incorporate in their messages (not to mention, all the boxes on screen) as well as requiring users to read lots of text and keep track of multiple conversations. As a result, the learnability, memorability, and speed of the platform would have suffered. I still don't think that Wave was overly complex, despite its many features. I do think that putting shift + key functions at the fore was a mistake. It's best to leave functions like that to the techies to memorize. To help users keep track of multiple conversations, maybe a bubble formation of some type should have been used instead of a rows-and-columns format reminiscent of email. |
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aton
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Post by aton on Apr 18, 2013 21:22:01 GMT -5
1. I think Wave's best feature was its ability to collaborate efficiently. It may have been useful if library professionals need to work on something together without needing to go face to face. As a form of everyday communication, I don't think it would've had much use because there are already so many forms of communication that work pretty well (phone, chat, email etc).
2. Wave's learnability seemed to be the biggest problem, in my opinion. As the video showed, it took 80 minutes to demo the existing features. The addition of new features would take more time to learn. The average person wouldn't want to spend that much time. Implementing so many features at once really bogged down its usability. Perhaps it would have worked better if the different features were introduced gradually. Most other forms of communication are pretty simple with few extra features (attachments, 3 way calls etc). Wave should've gone just a step or two beyond that so people could "catch up."
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Post by rachaels on Apr 19, 2013 6:46:47 GMT -5
1. I think Wave's best feature was its ability to collaborate efficiently. It may have been useful if library professionals need to work on something together without needing to go face to face. As a form of everyday communication, I don't think it would've had much use because there are already so many forms of communication that work pretty well (phone, chat, email etc). 2. Wave's learnability seemed to be the biggest problem, in my opinion. As the video showed, it took 80 minutes to demo the existing features. The addition of new features would take more time to learn. The average person wouldn't want to spend that much time. Implementing so many features at once really bogged down its usability. Perhaps it would have worked better if the different features were introduced gradually. Most other forms of communication are pretty simple with few extra features (attachments, 3 way calls etc). Wave should've gone just a step or two beyond that so people could "catch up." I agree with you about the learnability, but I think part of that is because they were showing it, while still in development, to other programmers, so they were trying to highlight the complexity and opportunities. I tried to remember that throughout when it seemed so big and unwieldy. Then again, I never tried to use it, so it may have stayed big and unwieldy. |
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Post by lauradavidson on Apr 19, 2013 8:23:20 GMT -5
1. Explain whether you think Wave had potential to be successful in libraries
While I could see how this may have had potential to be successful - I don't think this ultimately could have worked. This would have been a great place to house specific questions and the answers to those questions. It would include pictures and visuals which would help in learning. However, seeing as how this is ultimately an email service - it would be difficult to mass use this unless it was linked to a blog. Then, the library user would have to comb through a blog to find any answers he or she was looking for. This is time-consuming and would involve a great deal of learnability on behalf of the user. Instead, library users would rather use a more direct method of just emailing or chatting with a librarian and getting more information from there.
2. What explanation can you give for why google Wave failed?
Google Wave failed because no one saw how it could be used. The normal methods of email and communication are suiting the needs of the user population, so no one adopted Google Wave to their communication tools.
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Post by lauradavidson on Apr 19, 2013 8:26:20 GMT -5
As the video showed, it took 80 minutes to demo the existing features. Also, during that presentation, there glitches in their delivery. I understand they may have been doing it to show that it wasn't perfect and that problems would occur. However, it's hard to be pumped up about a new technology when even the developers seemed to be having a hard time presenting it. |
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Post by lauradavidson on Apr 19, 2013 8:33:22 GMT -5
I had never heard of Google Wave until this assignment. I didn't hear about Google Wave until this assignment either. Seeing as how it didn't debut until that long ago, it tells me that this technology didn't get off the ground at all. I consider myself to be fairly tech saavy - but watching the demo I was just thinking to myself, "Why would I want to respond to part of the message halfway through, and then respond to the other half of the message at the bottom? It's much more efficient to reply to the entire message at one point in the conversation. |
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aton
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Post by aton on Apr 19, 2013 10:44:11 GMT -5
I didn't hear about Google Wave until this assignment either. Seeing as how it didn't debut until that long ago, it tells me that this technology didn't get off the ground at all. I consider myself to be fairly tech saavy - but watching the demo I was just thinking to myself, "Why would I want to respond to part of the message halfway through, and then respond to the other half of the message at the bottom? It's much more efficient to reply to the entire message at one point in the conversation. I can see it having use if the conversation has gotten really long. I have a tendency of IMing long text walls that pingpong between subjects so it would be nice to have some ability to reply in certain places. That's actually the only feature I really wanted over the others in terms of using Wave as a everyday tool for conversation. |
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Post by vsmith15 on Apr 19, 2013 12:06:57 GMT -5
1. Do I think Wave had the potential to be successful in libraries?
I think it would have been used in libraries but would have to be employed in conjunction with instant messaging, email, wikis, and etcetera; in other words, it couldn’t be the only choice of communication format. Most patrons, who contact a librarian via an online system, are looking for a quick “fix” – a quick answer. To get that they are not going to use a conduit that they aren’t familiar with or is too complex; that’s why instant messaging is so successful – it’s fast and it’s easy, albeit not perfect, but it does get the job done. The Wave has so many components and options, that it is really too large a tool for the general give-and-take of online reference work that, I suspect, makes up the majority of the incoming requests to librarians. So while the tool would have worked, I doubt that it would have been used that much.
2. Why did it fail?
Way too complicated for the average bear. Just as recent developments in Facebook have been booed, if it takes too much time to learn – or if it isn’t that intuitive – people will jettison the technology from their personal repertoires. They were trying to create a one-stop-shopping experience but because they couldn’t completely capture the services offered by each entity, it was ultimately easier for users to just stick with what had been working for them.
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Post by vsmith15 on Apr 19, 2013 12:13:31 GMT -5
2. What explanation can you give for why google Wave failed? As I said earlier, Google Wave's format is very similar to the social networking and forums I've seen on other websites I use (and I have taken time into consideration and these were long before Google Wave was first introduced). As such, I think the reason Google Wave failed was its restriction. It is mentioned on the wikipedia site that "Those who received invitations and decided to test Google Wave could not communicate with their contacts on their regular email accounts. The initial spread of Wave was very restricted." This is a HUGE problem for sites like this because people need to be able to talk to and communicate with their contacts and if they can't they easily become frustrated and will use other websites or features as a means of communications. I think Google Wave's restriction problem is its biggest flaws, because the purpose of a social networking site is to connect people automatically. If users do not have that option then they will move on to another social networking site. Agree with this totally! The beta testing group was a savvy group that was used to testing new interfaces, if they experienced more than the usual number of speed bumps the general public's experience would only be worse. Rolling out the Wave as they did in the video was a risky thing. In an industry where the "cool quotient" of a new product is pretty much established by word of mouth - so too will that endorsement be revoked just as quickly if the roll out is slow or fails. |
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Post by vsmith15 on Apr 19, 2013 12:16:06 GMT -5
I had never heard of Google Wave until this assignment. I didn't hear about Google Wave until this assignment either. Seeing as how it didn't debut until that long ago, it tells me that this technology didn't get off the ground at all. I consider myself to be fairly tech saavy - but watching the demo I was just thinking to myself, "Why would I want to respond to part of the message halfway through, and then respond to the other half of the message at the bottom? It's much more efficient to reply to the entire message at one point in the conversation. When it first came out, one of my younger alumni volunteers suggested setting up a Wave so we could conduct committee work; it failed miserably because people couldn't figure it out. The initial set-up was horribly complicated and there was very little instruction out there as to how to use it. They pushed it into the marketplace too fast and didn't implement enough support measures to help users. |
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Post by vsmith15 on Apr 19, 2013 12:19:42 GMT -5
Explain whether you think Wave had potential to be successful in libraries. I think Wave seemed like a particularly competent project management tool, and as such had potential for use in libraries. It could have been useful for managing any number of administrative and mission tasks, including planning for circulation needs, what books to bring in to the library, outreach projects, scheduling needs, etc. It could also have been used to integrate the increasing use of social media in reference work into a system that would be easy to track and easy to turn into FAQs for the website. It integrated with the rest of Google well and was coded to be integrated into standard webpages. I didn’t see anything that screamed *library* more than any other organization. Again, mostly just useful project management and media integration. What explanation can you give for why google Wave failed? I actually asked at a company I used to work for, where it’s very technical (mostly graphic design and web hosting), and the response I got from them was that everyone joined…and then waited for something interesting to happen. We have programmers and developers, and they were also interested in the potential, but they didn’t find anything terribly compelling about it, and so didn’t jump on board the open source option. For myself, I think it was too big. There were several components of Wave that I think would be awesome – actually, the EtherPad collaborations we have in our other class remind me a lot of the basic Wave concept. But the integration of live chat to email, breaking out pieces of conversation – that makes sense, but just by itself it’s approaching overly complex. I think if they had brought these components out as discrete options and then gradually integrated them, it would have been easier for users to begin utilizing. I think you nailed it here Rachel. It would have made a great project management tool for an internal audience that could have been first taught how to use it with some common protocols. Too unwieldy to be used by both inside and outside constituencies for the same conversation. |
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leann
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Post by leann on Apr 19, 2013 12:26:51 GMT -5
2. What explanation can you give for why Google Wave failed? .... Also touched on by others was the privacy issue. I too was a bit put off by the character-by-character transmission of messages as well as the private messaging tool. I agree with my other classmates who thought that this seemed a bit awkward. While I'm sure the private messaging worked just fine, the fact that the message would still appear in the user's own Wave thread might look a bit confusing, and many users might be too paranoid to implement it effectively. .... There is something cool to me about character-by-character transmission, as if I'm watching an action-spy movie or something. But practically speaking, I think you're right about it being awkward. I wonder whether was feedback concerning this feature during the short time that Wave was in operation. I am not sure whether they made these changes, but in the video they did mention that they were working on the speed. They said they weren't sure what a good compromise was between that instantaneous gratification and enough delay that you could cover mistakes, go back over things, etc. Some sort of feature where you could turn off the instant (similar to how you can turn off others' ability to see if you are typing) may have been helpful - sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's not. |
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Post by jmessick on Apr 19, 2013 14:01:32 GMT -5
1. Explain whether you think Wave had potential to be successful in libraries
I think this had potential because it has the combination of email, chat room, and discussion board as far as the style of conversation. This would be great for a virtual chat in a library because it allows the librarian to reply specific parts of the question. Also the feature where it live transmits what you are typing, similar to the collaboration board on ELMS is very cool! Also it would be easy to include another librarian in the chat and they would be able to see everything that had been in the conversation before they were added. I also like how there is the option to only send a message to one person in the "wave", this could allow the two librarians to discuss the patron's question without the patron having to be a part of the administrative conversation.
2. What explanation can you give for why google Wave failed?
I can't really find an explanation. There are a lot of features but it seems to me they did a good job of combining the best of chat, email, discussion boards,wikis etc. into one format.
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Post by jmessick on Apr 19, 2013 14:03:18 GMT -5
1. I think Wave's best feature was its ability to collaborate efficiently. It may have been useful if library professionals need to work on something together without needing to go face to face. As a form of everyday communication, I don't think it would've had much use because there are already so many forms of communication that work pretty well (phone, chat, email etc). I agree with it being useful for library professionals. I'm thinking about how cool this would be for our group projects in this program! It adds more cool features to the collaboration board tool we have in ELMS that would be helpful for these group projects |
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