Last week internet giant Google debuted a combination of email, instant messaging and word processing that it hopes will eventually rank alongside programs such as Microsoft Outlook.
Titled ‘Google Wave’, the new portal allows users to chat with friends in real-time and send invitations to events, similar to sites such as Facebook. But while initial praise flooded the internet after Wave’s introduction, some criticism of the new invention is starting to appear.
Sam Varghese of ITWire.com.au wrote that Google is leaving behind its long-held principles of keeping its products both simple to use and look at.
“With Google, less has always been more….it’s difficult to understand why Google has departed from a line of thinking that has proved to be very successful.”
“The company has been incredibly agile, and competent at what it has chosen to do. With Wave, it has overreached and may finally get beached.”
Rafe Needleman and Stephen Shankland from Cnet both cautioned against businesses looking to move onto the Wave platform, as many may be tempted by the open-source nature of the software.
“I think Wave is a great platform for getting work done, but there are dangers. It can take a process that is deliberate and thoughtful and make it into a frothy and superficial back-and-forth,” Needleman wrote.
“Expect businesses to go through an adjustment period as Wave arrives,” Shankland said. “Just as with other electronic communications, one person’s active and engaging chat channel is another person’s annoying, productivity-sapping distraction.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
