Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The five worst tech products of 2009 | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com

Google Wave is #1…

1. Google Wave

With its mission to replace email, or at least be what email could have been if it were invented in the 21st century, Google Wave launched on to the technology scene with grand ambitions in 2009. Announced at the Google I/O developer conference in the spring, Google Wave became a hot topic in the fall when Google’s policy of making the Beta available via invitation-only created a feeding frenzy on social networks for people clamoring for Google Wave invites. From the very beginning I said that this was one of those products that looks great in a presentation but makes no sense in the real world. After trying Google Wave when the product was released into the wild, my opinion hasn’t changed (and others such as Robert Scoble have come to the same conclusion). Google Wave is basically a super-chatty IM client, and a badly overhyped one at that. The only use I can see for this product is for geographically dispersed project teams collaborating and brainstorming on documents and product development ideas in real time. Email has nothing to fear. Google Wave will not be stealing its throne.

The five worst tech products of 2009 | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com

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