Sleepy-Head

So, I am really excited about google wave. I’ve watched the keynote, read the specs, and the mailing list. Google seems to be legitimately planning to open this up as much as possible. Easily as much as email is open now, plus they are giving a lot of reference implementations and example code that even goes beyond that in my opinion.

The reaction so far has been very positive I think, but there has been some negativity. Most of it seems to be along the lines of, “that’s nothing new”, or “it’s just fancy chat” etc. I think a lot of this is missing the point from a perspective of technological superiority. Sure, it might not be anything that different if you are the kind of person who can set up a wiki, and a mailing list in a few minutes. Most people aren’t like that. Most people have never used a mailing list. Most people that use computers have never used a mailing list, or a wiki. It’s just too hard, and not something they are interested in. People that forget this I think, may just be (enviably) isolated from that level of user.

The inbox metaphor is something that people get. If I can send you a wave, that is also a wiki page, and a chat, and a shared document all in one that is a lot of hurdles I have crossed in getting you to use modern software. Currently I have to talk you into a wiki, train you to use email correctly. (no reply below what i said!) and convince you that chat isn’t just for your kids.

From what I have seen the initial user interface will be easy enough for everyone to just get, without having to be talked into it. That ease of use is based on the email metaphor. The actual protocol though is not similar to the email metaphor at all, and is another source of excitement.

This system is lightweight and simple enough for it to very easily grow into things that are not planned now. The system of waves, wavelets, and blips, allows for a really simple access control system, and versioning. As more clients and tools support this I think we will really start seeing some uses for the tech crowd that look very little like email.

I hope use of this spreads quickly. Microsoft seems like the big loser here. Of course they could implement this in whatever is after Exchange 2010, but somehow I think they would resist out of pride.

So, now that viable mobile platforms exist how long can the SMS money gouge model survive? Twitter, Facebook IM, AIM, none of those cost more than a grand per MB… Related: Why are telecoms inherently anti-innovation and consumer-hostile?

Very interesting explanation of what Microsoft is planning with ie8 and version targeting. I don’t know how I feel about it from a standards view, but it does seem convenient. From Andy Budd’s analysis:

The big irony is that, by doing this, Microsoft have set up the ideal conditions to marginalise their own browser. Clueless developers won’t know about this behaviour so every new site they build will automatically be rendered as IE7. Clued-up developers will use this as an excuse to freeze support for IE and turn their attentions to better browsers. Users will see less benefit from upgrading and will be more likely to turn to other browsers. In fact the only people to benefit are the small minority of web standards developers who use Internet Explorer as their primary browsers.

I think that’s mostly right actually. I wrote the first paragraph of this post before reading his discussion. When I said convenient, it was very clearly in my mind meaning locking sites to ie7 and never looking back. The part I would disagree with though is that this what a lot of corporate people want. In large companies the intranet people are not on the cutting edge of anything. The intranet people aren’t even the IT people, often different departments, using some crazy content management system. Microsoft isn’t shooting themselves in the foot, their customers are. Microsoft is only accommodating them in a way that doesn’t fuck them over also. Microsoft can still keep making better browsers, like ie8, ie9 etc, while letting their slow corporate customers sit happily in 1998. Whether anyone is interested in good browsers from Microsoft is another very real question though.

I’m looking forward to the day when “enterprise” is a mostly pejorative term for software. Like legacy. “Oh, I couldn’t find that email at work, you know, we use enterprise software of course.”

Well, this is pretty awesome. I wonder how many people are using it.

Very good analysis of the current situation by Chris Messina.

A very interesting post at The Future Uncertain, about medical franchises, and how the future of medicine may look more and more like McDonalds. Not in terms of quality, but in brand recognition. Major hospitals already advertise to some extent, but it’s almost entirely regional. Many hospitals are at the same time making satellite locations (franchises?). This is certainly already the case with places like Kelsey-Seybold in some areas (more of a for profit clinic than a hospital). Follow this trend out and see where it leads.

Lab services are certainly getting more centralized, right now I would estimate most of your lab testing if you go to your local doctor is either done by quest or labcorb, it will only move more in that direction due to cost, and the ability for those companies to offer esoteric testing at a rate that is profitable. When your medical franchise doesn’t have to deal with all the things like nurse staffing (increasingly mobile and centralized), and lab testing, some of the largest barriers to growth are removed. (This if course completely ignores any possible socialization of the scene, which is somewhat probable.) Who knows, but the future seems uncertain indeed.