mattwrites:

When Google released Wave last September they Google described it as “an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration”. The tool was great, but left people confused. A major part of real-time collaboration is having people to collaborate with. But Google decided to make it invite only and limited the number of users. Once people were finally on it, they had no one to collaborate or communicate with. This was mistake number one.

Mistake number two was making it a stand alone product outside of Gmail, with no notification system. People would receive Waves, but would go days without checking them because they would forget to login at http://wave.google.com.

Fast forward to Buzz… When Google released the product earlier this week, they didn’t make the same release mistakes twice. They made it available to everyone and integrated it directly with Gmail.

If Google had released Wave like they did Buzz and Buzz like they did Wave, both products would have received far better reception. Wave users would have had people to collaborate with, making the product useful, and the Gmail integration would have been a great way to notify users of a new Wave. As for Buzz, it would have had the internet users going crazy over invites and given the innovators a new, exclusive social networking site.

One final thing… Had Google rolled out Buzz like Wave, the privacy issues associated with the service would have been nailed down with the innovators, who tend to be more open anyway. This fact alone would have changed the general tone and press regarding the release.

Leave a comment with your thoughts.