Steve Rubel: Wave requires a new way of thinking. Sure, we're capable of it as humans. But... we like linearity... 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 only solved problems that some, eg info junkies, had. And it required a new way of thinking and operating... 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.
Decius: These prophetic comments echo a lot of my experience with MemeStreams.
Noteworthy, from November 2008: It's like an endless cry in the wilderness, but no one is listening. The zeal of the True Believer frequently leads to such outcomes. Douglas Engelbart comes to mind. In a 2007 seminar at MIT, Engelbart spoke with some inspiration for more than an hour about his ideas for harnessing and augmenting our "collective intelligence". But his true passion emerged only at the very end of the seminar, when he pulled out his beloved chord keyboard and proceeded to demonstrate its unsurpassed superiority to all present. Were we not convinced? How could it be? The audience's less than compelling response led to a near-harangue about why his mouse succeeded wildly while his chord keyboard failed utterly. In his view, the chord keyboard is unquestionably far superior to the QWERTY. People did not adopt chording because they lacked the persistence to overcome the mental hurdle of learning it, and they lacked the imagination to envision their lives on the other side of the hurdle. So they sat dumbly, QWERTY in hand, pecking away without satisfaction. It was his duty to carry on the struggle. Eventually all would see the light ...
Google Wave 1.0 = RSS, the Sequel. In Other Words, DoA ... for Now | 
