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by taeric 3034 days ago
Not just internally. I remember the massive hype around this being the "next email." I excitedly got as many of my friends onto there as I could.

I can't really pinpoint any one thing. There really was a mass of mistakes that all lead to this imploding heavily. I seem to recall that the fate of GWT was intertwined heavily with it. Very heavyweight widgets to support the general idea of massive collaboration in real time.

I suspect the killer is that "real time" portion. People love to talk about that. Few actually want it. (Fewer still need it.)
3 comments
jacquesm 3034 days ago
> I suspect the killer is that "real time" portion.

Real time is good for collaboration but it sucks for messaging. A good messaging platform allows you to ignore it until you are ready for it.

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taeric 3034 days ago
I suspect "fast" is good. Real time is just an indulgence that can demo well if it has been well rehearsed.
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TheSmiddy 3034 days ago
Pretty sure the biggest mistake was the same as Google Plus': the invite system that artificially hampers growth.

Since these platforms need to capture an entire network of people at the same time if there is something preventing someone from bringing all their friends/collegues in at the same time then it is doomed to fail.

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wlesieutre 3034 days ago
Yeah, this worked fine for Gmail's early years because you can talk to people on other email systems. But Google tried to apply the same system to both Wave and Plus where the exclusivity made them comparatively useless.

I think they've learned the lesson by now at least, since their latest communication systems (Duo and Allo) had open signups. If those two fail it'll be because they were pointless (from a user perspective) entries into a crowded market of established players who already had network effect lock-in working them.

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taeric 3033 days ago
More than just the invite, I think they really soured a larger portion of their market than they thought.

The impression seemed to be that they would kill buzz/reader/wave, and the folks would just naturally turn to what they then offered. The reality seemed as much that many of us were unwilling to try anything else from them until it was clear it was good and going to stick around.

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kopos 3034 days ago
And the only thing I remember was that students / people started using to create the longest wave.
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