I have received an invite to Google Wave. I don't know much about this except that it is some kind of real-time collaboration tool. I accepted the invitation and now can provide another seven of you with an invite in turn (You get eight, a lot less than the hundred you used to get with gmail. I have offered one to my son, but he seems less than enthusiastic so I may get it back).
The selling point of Wave is that it is real time, and multi media. Maybe the big downside is that it is real time. Proper work requires undivided concentration. Real time interaction destroys that. Like trying to write a novel while serving at a (possibly not very busy) shop.
I have accounts with ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger (under its many names), Skype, Google Talk, and probably a few instant messaging services I have forgotten about. I use Pidgin messaging under Linux to sign in to many of these services but hardly ever talk to anyone over them. If people want to get hold of me synchronously they telephone me, or even visit me.
I've been reading Hal Varian's book 'Information Rules'. Its discussion network effects is very good. It seems to me that no IM system, including Google Wave, if that is actually what it is, will reach that critical mass that email and the telephone have reached. Varian is a clever guy, and a lot of people have lost a lot of money by betting against Google, but not everything they back turns to gold. Any members of Orkut out reading this?
The problem with Wave is that it requires people to say something. People seem reluctant to do that. I am not sure why not, but I suspect that it's something to do with the experience most people have of education, of failing exams and having all their mistakes counted against them. I guess that this makes them afraid even to write an email. I'm not quite sure how this squares with the average comment on a Daily Mail article, but I guess that these are made by the 1%.
I was reading that now more than 30% of the population of China is now online. Twice that proportion (surely) are online in the UK. But none of them seem to be from my school or university cohort. If you are in your 50's and are reading this, please comment on this entry to confirm that you are both online and able to write a sentence or two.
