• Scobleizer et al., Friday, October 2, 2009 3:21 PM

This week, thousands of lucky people got the chance to begin testing Google Wave -- what the search giant has billed as "the email of the future." Early reaction? Not so good.

"This service is way overhyped and as people start to use it they will realize it brings the worst of email and IM together: unproductivity," writes blogger Robert Scoble. "The first thing you notice is that you can see people chatting live in Google Wave ... it's a productivity sink if you are trying to just communicate with other people. It also ignores the productivity gains that we've gotten from RSS feeds, Twitter, and FriendFeed."

"It's slick to be sure," admits blogger Steve Rubel. "However, what I keep asking myself is this: what problem does it solve? In many ways it's overly complex. In fact, it's too complex for the era of the Attention Crash where all of us, especially knowledge workers, are crying for simplicity."

"I would bet that after the initial surge of curiosity, normal conversations and information exchange will eventually take over, so this initial spike may be an exception rather than the new rule," posits blogger Louis Gray. "But if you're diving into this new technology, expect to be exerting a lot of energy to stay on top of it, because messaging just got accelerated."

At least temporarily, "The part that is missing now is the infrastructure for social conversations -- the social network," writes blogger Oscar Berg. In a Thursday Tweet, Berg said, "The best thing with Google Wave is the empty inbox." Ouch.

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