12:17 pm
me:
Yeah, I'm starting to think that (sorry I accidentally edited your blip there, sluggish browser). It's very messy as an IM client as well, until you get the hang of not talking over the top of each other too much. Collaborative but choosy is a good phrase, and would encourage people to trying more interesting things.
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12:18 pm
Jacob Chapel:
Yeah, another thing that will help is being able to pull a series of blips, aka a wavelet, into a new wave when the discussion moves outside of the initial waves intent, much like what we are discussing now.
12:23 pm
me:
exactly, I was going to start separate waves for all my blogs and podcasts, but I realised this would be a mess - it's fragmenting the conversation and adding to the noise. I've tried to focus on one public wave and maybe I'll spin off some conversation later.
12:27 pm
Jacob Chapel:
The way you could do it, if a predominant theme in discussion forms, it wouldn't be hard to create a spinoff wave to encapsulate that theme in its own wave. That somewhat mimics the intended function without actually being able to copy the wavelet of discussion from the initial wave. Much like all conversation, it is continually transitioning between one topic to the next so it is really hard to guarantee that one wave will only be on one topic. Embracing that fluidity though is a good thing.
On a side note, once Google Wave is working as intended with the federation protocol, you could run your own Wave server and have your own userbase while still being connected to the rest of the Wave universe (heh). So you could have as many waves on as many topics, and it really wouldn't be a mess.
12:33 pm
me:
I think MSM outlets won't put too much effort into Wave until they have more control, like hosting it themselves.
I think everyone brings their pre-conceived notions to Wave (and inability to type) - at first you treat it like IM because it feels like IM, they you send a few "emails" and start a wiki/forum, then you try to establish your wave as a "page" for people to visit. I think it's going to turn into a bit of a land grab, but people are going to realise there is no land to claim. I've used a lot of keywords and tags in my public wave to get people's attention, but it will only show up high in search results if people keep contributing to it because it looks like all searches are ranked according to last edit time. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if there was a way to add more complicated SEO into Google Wave then it would turn into a major land grab - and maybe kill it. It's like a few thousand people have crashed on an uninhabited Class M planet and are deciding how their society is going to run - but it will all change once the griefers and spammers arrive unless Google introduces more controls.
12:36 pm
Jacob Chapel:
I agree, and from what I have seen/read they intend to allow more control. They don't want to make it too oppressive though as that might stifle any innovation within Wave itself. Look at the community effort that has been put into organizing things and getting people behind a common wavelength. The Wave FAQs and Etiquitte waves are awesome and very helpful, the fact that people put the time into them is great. You could say that they shouldn't be necessary, Google should have put everything in place before hand, but we are in the wild west of the internet right now, and quite frankly it is exilerating.
12:36 pm
me:
It's amazing to watch, I was very impressed by those Waves. It's smart to give the early users more freedom, because they can be trusted not to abuse it. Such freedom will let them turn Google Wave into something amazing.
12:39 pm
Jacob Chapel:
Well not only that, it allows Google a view into what actual users are doing and what security/permission changes they need to implement to give power to those that want more fine control. I myself would love to be able to create a Wave for everyone, but keep the initial blip to myself and a few trusted editors. People could contribute in the wave through discussion and if they proved themselves they could contribute directly to the IB. Not only editing control, but I think having control over who can invite others to waves will be important, namely protection from malicious bots.
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