Forbes.com Essay: A Walk Into Google Wave

Forbes.com CMO Network invited me to share some more thoughts on Google Wave. Here's my takeaway...

"The basic conclusion I came to is that, for all of its wonders, Wave is a mess. What Google Wave ignores is what Google watcher Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? calls the power of 'elegant organization.'

History was invented to be rewritten. However, we need to learn from it. Every single online advance over the last decade that stuck leveraged "elegant organization." They were simple, linear and solved common problems."

via Forbes.com: A Walk Into Google Wave

Google Wave 1.0 = RSS, the Sequel. In Other Words, DoA... for Now

You can't spend any time on Twitter without geeks lusting after Google Wave. Here's my quick take...it has as much chance catching on as RSS did.

I have had a Google Wave sandbox account since late July. It's slick to be sure. However, what I keep asking myself is this: what problem does it solve? In many ways it's overly complex. In fact it's too complex for the era of the Attention Crash where all of us, especially knowledge workers, are crying for simplicity.

Could it be an amazing enterprise collaboration tool? Sure, maybe. Could it be a Twitter, Facebook or email killer for consumers or a cure for cancer? I doubt it. 

Wave requires a new way of thinking. Sure, we're capable of it as humans. But as Mike Elgan, Anil Dash and Scoble wisely assess, Wave maybe ahead of its time. We like linearity. We need more tools that, as Jeff Jarvis has written, offer elegant organization - as Facebook and Google do. Wave does not - at least yet. It doesn't solve problems. If three of the geekiest geeks I know are not over the moon about it, then how will anyone else be?

Wave may stall the same way RSS unfortunately did. RSS is one of the greatest Internet innovations of the last decade (thank you Dave!). So why did it never take off with consumers? Simple. It didn't solve problems that many people have. It only solved problems that some, eg info junkies, had. And it required a new way of thinking and operating. (I would argue the entire concepts of feeds only took off once Twitter and Facebook simplified it.)

But what about Gmail you say? Gmail too was a complex beast when it debuted with its conversation views and interface -  and it caught on. Yes, but Gmail was different. It solved problems: mail storage quotas and killer search. Thus people were willing to make the investment to master it.

So definitely get excited about Wave. It is way cool. It is real time - where the world is going. But, for now, it does create more problems than it solves. Let's see if Wave 2.0 fixes that.

Twitter to Add User-Curated Lists

Lists are coming to Twitter to help users curate...

"The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time, athletes, local businesses, friends, or any compilation that makes sense.

Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you've created are linked from your profile. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. This means lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts."

Sounds like a great feature. Will be helpful for separating art from junk.

A Chance Meeting with Tom Dickson of Will It Blend

In Atlanta today I ran into Tom Dickson, CEO of Blendtec. This is his business card. If you don't know Blendtec, they are the geniuses behind the wildly successful Will It Blend video series.

We didn't have a lot of time to connect so I didn't shoot a video. However, I did get the sense that they are proud of their work (as you can see from Tom's business card above) and that it had helped their appliance company immensely.

I wish more firms would be as pioneering.

William Martino on Who Owns Social Media

A solid analysis from William Martino on who should "own" social media agency assignments...

"The reality is, CONSUMERS own social media, not brands and certainly not agencies. Whether we like it or not, we now must market our brands in a landscape where consumers have the tools to make their voice heard, and the technology to hear what everyone else is saying."

The hard part is even putting a box around just what is social media.