Making Sense of Disjointed Discussions
Google made the announcement of their well kept secret, Google Wave, at the I/O conference this week. Wave is Google’s attempt at evolving Internet communication and collaboration into real-time contextual discussions.

If you think about how e-mail has changed over the past 10 years, then you probably come to same conclusion as most people: It hasn’t changed much. The user interface may have been updated but you are still sending, replying and forwarding messages back and forth. The change on the communication front has come mostly from the introduction of Instant Messenger, micro-blogging apps and social networking sites. And if you consider blogs and wikis as additional methods of communication, then there are a lot of discussions going on outside of e-mail.

The drawback to all of these rich discussions is that they can become disjointed fairly quickly and keeping everything within context for yourself, let alone other participants can be complicated.

Take the situation when someone sends you and a colleague of yours an e-mail and you both reply with comments to that original e-mail. There are now exists two versions of that thread. Take it one step further and you IM the sender with a question about the first part of the e-mail. Well now that IM converstaion is completely missing from the thread of the e-mail and only two of you in the discussion know about it. The situation gets even more complex if someone starts referencing comments from a blog, flickr or youtube. See how the conversation is now taking places in multple places without any ability to being them together under the same conversation? 

Now I’m not sure you can solve the problem of managing all of these communications by building super apps that integrate e-mail, twitter, friendfeed, facebook, etc… into a single UI. There are apps today that present your twitter and facebook streams in a single interface but there are limitations in how you search, edit and share the data with other users. Additionally, there is a lack of awareness of the same conversation taking place in the various conmmunications forms that contributes to the problem I describe above. Then of course is the e-mail threading confusion of having multiple concurrent threads taking place which gets even worse when you look at conversations withing twitter and blog comments.

Re-imaging Communication
E-mail has only incrementally changed and not really adapted to the new way communication over the Web is taking place. Gmail’s threading view of e-mail conversations is useful but is more of a hack of e-mail. During the presentation announcing Wave, one line really stood out to me.  ”Wave is what e-mail would look like if it was invented today.” 

Google Wave Interface

Think of taking all of the communication sources (twitter, facebook, linkedin, instant messengers, blogs, e-mail) plus the rich media available in photo, graphic and videos sharing sites and simply dumping them into a vat. Then go through all of the data organize it into logical contextual discussions taking place between users. Finally mix  in the capability to search anything, edit anywhere and have the changes reflected real-time so everyone in the conversation is looking at the same information irregardless of where the communication is taking place. That is a lot to take in which is why the video below does a good job of demonstrating the potential.

There is a fear that changing all of the above will make the user experience much more complicated. If you once again go back to the original scenario I speak about, it becomes clear that the mishmash of today’s communication streams has already made the experience complictated. Users and vendors have just adopted this as the everyday way of doing business. 

Opening things Up

In addition to all of the features around communication and discussion, Google Wave is also being rolled out as an open source platform with the ability to create extensions. The is one of the areas in which Wave sets itself apart and maybe how it eventually wins as a communication/collaboration platform. The developer community is an extremly important aspect to succeed in today’s enterprise software space. Salesforce.com has done an amazing job creating a developer community. Apple and Google have similarly built a development community for their mobile platforms.

Google’s expertise is dealing with data and that is exactly where Wave shines. There was much to ooh and ahh about during the 1 hour presentation which you can catch below. There are a few very good examples of how communication can change into a real-time discussion and how that discussion benefits. I have picked out a few highlights and listed the timestamp in case you just want to see the cool stuff right away, but I recommend watching the entire presentation.

Video Highlights

• Integration of e-mail with in-line comments a la instant messenging at 8:45 in the video. 
• Have richer discussions in blogs by embedding Waves at 20:40 in the video.
• Collaboratively author documents at 27:50 the video.
• Wave collaboration showing inline editing and real-time conversation at 31:30 in the video. Also take note of the ‘Playback’ capability.
• Wave and Twitter integration example at 57:30 in the video.
• Wave and issue tracker integration (i.e. bugzilla) at  1:01:50 in the video.
• Real-time tranlsation of conversation to French and English at 1:12:00 in the video.

Much has been said about the announcement, the technology and it’s application in the real world. I’ll cover more about Wave and my impressions in a future post. In the meantime you can take a look at what others are saying. 

Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web

Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?

Google Wave To Bring Web 2.0 Lifestyle to Work

Amazon.com chose the later when faced with objections from the Authors’ Guild about text-to-speech capabilities in the Kindle 2. Seth Godin writes about other recent missteps by similarly short-sighted groups.

Ultimately the Kindle 2’s fate will be determined by the market. Hopefully a challenger to the Kindle 2 will appear with full text-to-speech capabilities so that those with impaired vision will be able to enjoy literary works like the rest of us.

Unlocking Business Opportunities

What Amazon may not have fully thought through are the businss opportunities in a market enhanced with text-to-speech. For example, they could offer a selection of voice over actors for any book on the Amazon store. This could range from Paris Hilton reading The Little Engine that Could all the way to Patrick Stewart reading Moby Dick. How about having a selection of actors reading Moby Dick and let the customer choose which one to hear? What if Amazon offered it up in a marketplace like iTunes at a price of 99 cents where voice actors can upload their versions of stories that can be imported into the ebook on the Kindle 2?

And what real leverage does the Authors Guild have over Amazon? Can’t Amazon simply choose to not distribute books that disagree with their text-to-speech implementation on the Kindle 2? But the Authors Guild does not have to be locked out of this potential revenue stream and, in fact, the more voice-enabled books there are, the more books they will sell. Maybe I am just naive to think everyone would benefit or maybe the Authors’ Guild are short-sighted?

Amazon may have such a plan in place and they are simply working through logistics. I hope that is the case. There are other platforms, besides the Kindle, that can also take advantage of integrating text-to-speech into ebooks. Android already has a few text-to-speech and ebook apps on the marketplace. The next step would be to combine the two and allow users to upload their audio readings of the books. Eventually more well known voice actors i.e. LeVar Burton may join in and offer their interpretations at a slightly higher premium price.

There will continue to be ’short-sighted ones’ that prefer the status quo in the face of change. In those cases, just look at how these organizations fared:

1. The RIAA and MPAA are losing the battle to justify lost revenues in light of the trend towards file sharing networks

2. Microsoft’s anti-trust activities failed to maintain browser marketshare against alternatives offering innovation

3. The Republican party completed an epic fail in losing the presidency and any influence in the house and senate in election cycle 2008

I have faith that Amazon.com with see the Kindle 2 for its tremendous possibilities and unleash it in the not too distant  future.

Photo Credit: dekuwa , rajeshvj

2009 is the year of Android and G1, at least that is my hope. There is a lot of potential in this product, but potential doesn’t get you success or superbowl rings, just ask Tony Romo, T.O. and the Dallas Cowboys. I found a post talking about a Top 10 G1 wishlist which covered the most important feature missing in the G1, the on-screen keyboard. With the upcoming ‘cupcake’ release that will hopefully be remedied. Unfortunately as of Jan.1 in CA, there is no more texting and driving so my #1 reason for wanting the on-screen keyboard is no longer valid. Not to worry there are a few other reasons for wanting the on-screen kb which I will not bore everyone with unless you really want to hear it.

Continuing on with the G1 Android wishlist, here are a few that I think can take this product from just a smartphone to my most favorite gadget EVER!! At this moment, that spot is being held by the Flip Mino HD, which I got a few weeks ago and absolutely cannot live without.

SIDEBAR When I was growing up one of my responsibilities was family video recorder. I had to lug around these giant video cameras to record family vacations and social events on VHS tapes. The weight of this on my shoulder alone cost me any shot at a professional sports career. The fact that I had no hops, just average speed and was 5′6″ didn’t help either. Fast forward 15 years and the video recorder is the size of a cell phone, records in HD and is as easy as pushing a little red button. If I had this when I was growing up, then my mom or dad could have been the one recording and I would have been able to protect my shoulder for football, basketball or baseball. I guess these things happen for a reason. 

Back to the G1 Android list, here are a few things that I think will continue to fully exploit the G1’s potential. (In no particular order)

1. Better integration with the accelerometer and screen rotation in all apps. It is already integrated into the video player and Steel showed that you can do this with the web browser, what about other apps like fBook, WikiNotes, photos?

2. More battery life. I am tempted to buy the higher capacity battery. Power Meter is a very cool utility that takes on managing the battery for me, but I need to be able to go longer between charges.

3. More apps that integrate camera with context like shopsavy and wikitude. Augmented Reality is not a future innovation, it is here and getting integrated in many places. There are a ton of opportunities to blend context into the camera that will make people happier, more aware of their surroundings, save them money and connect them to the world among other things. We are just scratching the surface of what is possible and I would love to see the G1 be the device to bring AR into the hands of consumers. Read my earlier post about AR for other uses.

4. Mario Kart + accelerometer integrated would be killer. This is a personal wish based on the cravings of my innerchild. But it would be cool, no?

Hope you enjoyed my take on the G1’s potential.

Photo Credits: Cheryl Syverson

After reading it, I can think of other ways to employ it for everyday use. Here is an interesting idea.

 G1 + AR = Astronomy 101 for Everone

Ever find yourself lying down on a field of grass or hood of your car, looking up at the stars in the clear sky and wishing you learned how to identify the Big Dipper, Polaris or Orion? Never? Ok, but what if you did? What if you can take your G1, point it to the sky and have it identify constellations for you as you look through the camera lens? Think of all those millions of children that never had the opportunity to learn about the stars or astronomy, now having all this information in their hands. In addition to identifying the stars, there can be more context of each star given on the screen, like origin of the name, when it was discovered and other interesting stats. Make astronomy fun again. (was it fun to begin with?)

Take it step farther and incorporate interactive learning so that the patterns are not just being identified for you, but the G1 is teaching you how to identify them yourself like in this tutorial.

With this kind of app, an interesting case can be made for the G1 to be subsidized by schools for students. Isn’t learning supposed to be fun and interactive?

Interested in Augmented Reality? Read this wrap up of milestones in 2008 for AR.

Row 1 (from left to right)

Facebook : I spend a good a mount of time either on facebook or at least keeping the window open to check out what people are up to. Lately I have been connecting with a lot of old college buddies which has made me spend additional time catching up with what they have been doing for the past decade. I only play one or two games and visist a few of the groups that I am a member of.

Wordpress – Wordpress is my blog platform and I am on this site a lot, especially when I get writer’s block and just sit there looking at a blank new blog post screen. I also enjoy looking through the blog stats and where people are doming from.

CNN.com – CNN.com actually grew into my top 9 during the election. It was a tight race between CNN.com and Foxnews.com over the past few months and during the elction they were neck and neck, vying for my attention. After the election though, CNN.com won out because I felt they delivered more varied viewpoints on news stories while FoxNews.com was tilted toward the conservative viewpoint. I still visit FoxNews.com from time to time to get another angle on stories and they do a better job at highlighting local news around the nation. Oh and their Strategy Room during the election was the best web programming around.

Row 2

iGoogle – This is my home page. You can’t see too clearly what widgets i have but they are Hulu.com, Google Reader, Google Docs and weather. I recently added fora.com to my home page based on a recommendation, but haven’t really been using it, so it will probably get removed soon. 

I used to go to myyahoo.com as my home page, but slowly moved away from that. It wasn’t a one day switch. I can remember having a myyahoo.com and igoogle page running in parrallel. I would use myyahoo mostly for news and stocks. Once I started using CNN more for news and was less interested in stocks, I stopped going to myyahoo.com. I still visit myyahoo.com to check on how my fantasy football team is doing, but that is pretty much it. I never really thought about how much less I use yahoo now than say a year ago, but it is pretty remarkable. MyYahoo.com was my default page for almost 3 years.

I would say that the first four on this list are high traffic sites for me and the next two are medium trafficked sites.

Twitter –  I just started using Twitter and while I go to the website to look at profiles of people following me or for searching through tweets, I primarily use tweetdeck to monitor tweets of those that I follow. TweetDeck is a very cool application that allows you to organize groups of people you follow and filter out the rest. This is extremely useful  as your twitter network grows and you get inundated with tweets. 

LinkedIn – I am trying to figure out the best use of LinkedIn. It is great as a contact database for my professional network, but as I wrote earlier, I don’t make status updates in LinkedIn because I don’t think it is appropriate for the audience. I turned on the Wordpress application today and linked my blog so we will see how that goes.

Row 3

CraigsList – This is on the top 9 primarily because I have been looking around for furniture for the kids’ rooms. I was able to get a great deal on a couple of beds, dressers and a desk and only had to drive 5 minutes to pick it up. Amazing. Craigslist will probably stay on the top for the time being as I try to sell the kids’ old beds and their car seats. Gotta love growing children.

BacknGear.com google home page – This is my e-mail, docs, etc… all powered by Google for backngear.com.

Meebo – I have written about Meebo in a previous post. I am still a big fan.

Finishing up

So there you have a day in my web browsing shoes. There are a ton of other things I do online that aren’t in the top 9 but are just as important. For example, I follow up on a lot of links through my Twitter network. 

It may be interesting to have your top 9 sites updated on your facebook or google profile so your contacts can see as well. Since Chrome is an open platform, maybe someone can write that app?