There's a lot of talk amongst the tech community about Google Wave, which Google announced as the 21st century replacement for e-mail. It incorporates features from e-mail, web-forums and chat into one glorifious multimedia mess. People were begging for invitations to sample this latest masterpiece from Google.
I guess it's exciting for some people, but I'm an old-school curmudgeon who thinks Usenet is still the best way for a community to communicate. But I was willing to give Google Wave the benefit of the doubt, at least until it became publicly available and I could make a more thorough investigation of its advantages. That is, until I saw this.
The above may not be the use that Google intended for Wave, but undoubtedly that is the sort of communication that it is going to be used for once the public gets their hands on it. I'm the sort who will frown at you if you use HTML in your e-mail; I have no interest in that sort of pointless distraction being added to a conversation. Google Wave's primary feature, it seems, is the ability to add unnecessary noise to the signal.
As a collaboration tool, Google Wave might have a future; as a replacement to e-mail I hope it dies a slow and painful death.
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