Mozilla vs Google: Will Raindrop be the Wave we were hoping for?
Google Wave
I’ve been looking at Google Wave for a short while now. So far it hasn’t been all I hoped it would be.
Speed is probably the main contributor to this – it’s slow. Really slow. I’ll admit though that it’s now at least twice as fast as when I started using it. If they’ve been doing any work on it, then this bodes well for the future as I’m sure they’ll find other ways to speed it up.
On the whole, Robert Scoble’s sentiments capture the major things about it, so have a read of that. There is nothing specific I would want to add to it, and this statement of his sums it up well:
“Google Wave adds many of these unproductive problems [from e-mail] and then lays another few unproductive things on top.”
At the moment I’m not seeing the value of Wave. I’m looking forward to seeing the apps that come out [once they've properly solved the speed problem, that is] as I believe this is where the real value will lie. If early reports about the technology behind Wave are true, there is tremendous upside, but that’s realistically still a little way off.
In fact, I think the best thing that Wave has going for it right now is that it’s new.
Mozilla Raindrop
Now this is interesting – Mozilla just announced their new [Wave killer?] innovation – Raindrop.
I bet the noise around Wave spurred this into life sooner than Mozilla originally planned, but a little competition will do them both some good.
Raindrop is billed as “a new exploration… to explore new ways to use open Web technologies to create useful, compelling messaging experiences.”
This video is a snapshot of what to expect:
Raindrop UX Design and Demo from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.
The main points from this video:
- Raindrop is not another e-mail client [same as was said for Wave]
- E-mail is now overloaded [so true!] so how do you make it personal again? It’s just not fun anymore.
- The focus will be on:
- categorisation of messages
- see personal messages over the bulk
- focus on messages from real people
Celebrity deathmatch – so what’ll it be?
FastCompany say that Raindrop sounds a lot like Google Wave, and frankly it does.
Looking at the detail though, it sounds to me more like they are similar, potentially even complementary, platforms.
They’re both open-source, both trying to solve a communication problem.
But while Wave tries to facilitate collaboration by removing dependency on email and replacing it with a more suitable [eventually, we hope] platform, Raindrop looks more like it will allow email to be what it’s supposed to be and remove the noise.
I haven’t seen Raindrop in action yet, but from this early teaser I’m really looking forward to it. Personally I prefer the Raindrop approach, and after an early look at Wave, I think Raindrop stands a good chance of gaining some ground. If I had to choose one right now [and Raindrop was working as the video suggests] I’d have to give Mozilla the nod as it sounds more practical and useful.
Do you think Wave and Raindrop will change the way we communicate, or are they going nowhere fast?
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