HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ jka

It's strange to think that this presentation of Google Wave was over a decade ago now. The concepts and interface still feel ambitious.

Although elements similar to Wave appear in modern messaging apps, it's hard to think of a single collaboration tool which provides all of the group threads, context, and dynamic widget support.

In terms of realtime group collaboration with support for dynamic elements, the most impressive project I've seen recently is Cattaz[1], a research project from Fujitsu Labs.

[1] - http://cattaz.io/

⬐ merciBien

I wonder if Google Wave, or something like is more likely to succeed now that some many of us work 100% remotely.

I've made a timeline with the video of the original world-shattering announcement and demo of Wave at Google IO, and some of the Google Wave related submissions to HN. How pretentious and audacious it seems in retrospect! It’s hard to appreciate all the snarky jokes in the Pissed Off Wave Tutorial, if you don’t remember how, um, over-confident they were when they announced Wave.

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009 (May 28, 2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web. (May 28, 2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=630427

https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-drips-with-amb...

Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today (May 29, 2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=630470

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-wave-what-might-emai...

What problems does Google Wave solve? (Oct 15, 2009)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=883116

https://danieltenner.com/2009/10/15/0012-google-wave-html/

Google Kills Wave (Aug 4, 2010)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1575892

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wav...

What makes Slack so successful whereas Google Wave wasn't? (Oct 10, 2015)

https://www.quora.com/What-makes-Slack-so-successful-whereas...

What in the Hell Was Google Wave Trying to Be Anyway? – Gizmodo UK (May 27, 2019)

https://gizmodo.com/what-in-the-hell-was-google-wave-trying-...

On a lighter note, the Game Helpin’ Squad (who made the Wave tutorial) also has several spot-on parodies of various video game genres!

“Time Travel Understander” is a parody of Braid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fABGyVzVwI

“Severe Running” parodies those Flash running games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrUWFo2D1Xs

And “World Quester 2” is the ultimate D&D RPG parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gy9hJauXns

"Pretend Gas Station" is a SimCity parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMeWas4kXM

“Solitare Party” parodies all those card games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBbMb3X2R8A

⬐ slovenlyrobot

It's a big ask, but I've hunted for it numerous times. Do you have or know the video of the dude in the crowd holding his laptop over his head in ecstatic appreciation during the Wave release? Also the parody of the guy the Wave team later made during a semi-unrelated video

It's one of the finest statements ever made about our industry, but if it's still around it's well hidden

⬐ jdougan

I dunno, I liked Wave. I thought of it as NLS as implemented by a modern software dev who had only heard a verbal description.

⬐ DonHopkins

I fell for the hype myself, got terribly excited about it, and wrote up a bunch of ideas in a Wave discussion about how to use it for collaborating in multi player SimCity. But it just got so slow and unresponsive the bigger a wave grew, and it was like drinking from a tsunami, so that nobody could keep up with what everybody else was typing.

⬐ jdougan

Part of the problem is that it had none of the filtering tools of NLS, and the linking/sharing/addressing tools had a terrible UI. It could have used some kind of changelog/journal as well.

I wish someone could have shown them The Mother of All Demos, if they could make it do mostly that it could have been amazing, but they were probably pretty heavy into drinking their own flavor-aid at that point.

Will never forget the launch event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

⬐ sidcool

This was an excellent launch. I watched live and was enthralled.

⬐ gmueckl

I remember it for the amount of demos that went wrong. It takes courage or desperation to demonstrate a project in that state.

Also, somewhere in there is a quote by the project lead that I still remember today, something like this: "There aren't many companies that can afford to mess up a demo. [pause] We're not one of them." The last part sounded like a panicked attempt to backpedal on what he just said.

    git clone http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-wave-android.git
    git clone http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-wave-docs.git
    git clone http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator-wave.git

Does it even build?

Wave is one of those things that everyone raves about but has never used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBzuuWZPaXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

https://youtu.be/v_UyVmITiYQ?t=455

I remember watching the Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O in 2009!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

I agree that the invite only really slowed it down.

Wave was built on XMPP wasn't it? If I understand correctly XMPP is fully extensible which means Google can add whatever data they want and still be inter-operable with all the common parts and then define the new parts.

Video seems like it could be out of band using WebRTC and initiated by new XMPP data.

Watching the Wave introduction presentation from Google I/O 2009 it's hard to buy that a new protocol was needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

⬐ None

None

For me it was Google Wave. The presentation[1] got me very excited and I couldn't wait to start using it. I signed up for the beta and told everyone I work with to do so as well. It quickly became an invaluable tool for me, I couldn't imagine what I'd do without it. And then, a year after it was introduced, only 3 months after it was released to the general public, Google announced Wave was dead.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

⬐ freehunter

At least they open-sourced it and released a stand-alone version via the Apache Foundation. You can still use Wave, it's just called Apache Wave or Wave in a Box.

Hello, I have a question.

Does anybody know about javascript rich text / HTML editor, that could easily show small popup under carret (or certain word) while the user is typing? I mean something like the spell-checker in this google wave demonstration - see at 0:44:40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ Or lets say, you want to implement something like this http://doc.trolltech.com/4.6/tools-customcompleter.html but in web browser. How would you go about it?

I'm surprised nobody has compared this to google's wave yet.

If you haven't, you should go check out the demo -- I'm not for sure yet how much feature overlap there is, but their demo exhibits a wow factor that is undeniable.

It's long, but skip around and you're sure to hit on at least some of the important bits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

⬐ runinit

It could easily be a gadget or extension for google wave, the protocol is already there.

⬐ growt

I think that might have been intentional, since no real data got leaked (you have no clue what x is, so its useless).

⬐ farnulfo

I don't think. There is also data about how many peolple is working on it. See this pic : http://twitpic.com/69s1t/full

40.5 SEs, 2 UI, 3 PM, 5 TEST, 5 SRES, 2 managers

SE : System engineer, PM : Product Manager. Don't know what is SRES.

⬐ lastkarrde

Document is titled 'Google Wave Overview' ?

⬐ farnulfo

Machine ressources

* Frontends: 5 machines per x users

* User DB : 30 machines per x users

* Conversation DB : 10 machines per x users

* Backend servers : 5 machines per x users

* GFS storage : 100 machines per x users

Total 150 machines per x users

Did you watch the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

I found it pretty exciting, at least.

That's probably the most blatant example of FUD in internet history. Jumping to conclusions while remaining blissfully ignorant to the actual implementation.

Until we get access to the sandbox, you should draw your own conclusions by watching the keynote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

⬐ tlrobinson

After watching this and learning a bit more about it, many of the comments in the other Wave submissions seem blatantly uninformed.

I suggest you all watch this.