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by adamkochanowicz 4121 days ago
Wave was a replacement to email, not exactly an online "notepad." It wasn't about documents at all, no more so than email today is.

So you're right that it's not like Slack or Hipchat, but I think you may also misunderstand its purpose.
1 comments
onion2k 4121 days ago
Google pitched it as a replacement for email (another reason for people being confused about it's purpose) but the reality was that it was absolutely nothing like email. A wave was a document that you could edit with other people.

The 'about' page: https://web.archive.org/web/20100427183005/http://wave.googl...

Actually, looking at the screenshot on that page, I can see why s_dev sees it as something like Slack. It has a much more 'chat'-based interface than I remember. Sorry s_dev.

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hobs 4121 days ago
Yeah I always saw it as a mix between an instant message, a wiki page, and an email with real time collab. I really loved Wave because for interactions that were not well defined (such as building a knowledge base) I believe you could start waves from parts of a wave, and playback how each component of the information came together in a form of primitive version control.

Simplifying the interface, inviting more people to the beta when it was originally out, and increasing the ability to federate easily were three big things that were missing from wave for more people to adopt it imo.

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