4 HN recommenders · recommended in 10 months, 2009–2025
1:20:12 · 11M views · May 29, 2009
The Google I/O 2009 keynote introducing Google Wave, a real-time collaborative communication and document platform. It includes a long live demo and the developer preview announcement.
HN returns to it as the original Wave pitch, both for its wow factor and as a case study in a hyped product that was later shut down.
10 comments from Hacker News
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] this video
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: this video
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: this video
Here's one of my favorites, of Lars doing the Wave dance on stage to ad-lib over connectivity hiccups. For some reason it evoked a lot more empathy from me... this video
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) this video Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web. (May 28, 2009) [LINK] [LINK] Google Wave: What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today (May 29, 2009) [LINK] [LINK] What problems does Google Wave solve? (Oct 15, 2009) [LINK] [LINK] Google Kills Wave (Aug 4, 2010) [LINK] [LINK] What makes Slack so successful whereas Google Wave wasn't? (Oct 10, 2015) [LINK] What in the Hell Was Google Wave Trying to Be Anyway? – Gizmodo UK (May 27, 2019) [LINK] 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: [LINK] “Severe Running” parodies those Flash running games: [LINK] And “World Quester 2” is the ultimate D&D RPG parody: [LINK] "Pretend Gas Station" is a SimCity parody: [LINK] “Solitare Party” parodies all those card games: [LINK]