it's been out like 3 days. I agree that it seems dumb so far but google has released tons of stuff that seemed half baked and then over time gets better.
I remember everyone hating google talk when it first came out. No one liked Google news when it first came out either.
There is no guarantees but give it six months to a year before you're 100% sure it's dead.
To play Devil's Advocate, the difference is that GTalk offers very useful functionality. The Gmail integration was top-notch and the fact that it used Jabber meant that I can use it with iChat alongside AIM without effort. This isn't offering anything useful: virtual worlds add complexity where complexity isn't needed. Used to be Google was great at avoiding useless clutter - see again Gmail and Gtalk - but as time went on they've slackened, Gmail didn't progress at all - versus their competitors - and even Gtalk isn't really revolutionary, it's just been pushed with other products.
There are none that compete on a direct level. I use Gmail for free email myself.
That said, we've seen that better is possible. MobileMe set the current standard, though Yahoo! has done some pretty excellent things (though they rarely DEclutter) on occasion. I think that something that worked like Gmail, looked like MobileMe, would be the best solution. Something ridiculously streamlined, with powerful built-in search and threaded messages.
Once again, google stumbles with something remotely social. They really need to stop thinking algorithm is king for non-search products. Also, I've heard many anecdotes of designers being treated as second class citizens. That has to stop.
Interesting. Algorithm is king and underestimating design: those do sound like two distinctive Google weaknesses. If so, I'd be surprised if they stop. These are the sorts of things that get baked into cultural DNA early on and tend not to change.
Edit: At the same time, these have been two of Google's greatest strengths (in their core context).
They're smart though. I'm sure it wouldn't take long for them to realize they're clueless about the social aspects of the virtual world, and start hiring social media/game consultants. Look no further than Microsoft, who bought Bungee in anticipation for the Xbox.
Orkut has taken years, and has had little to no traction in the country where google has many thousands of employees.
Also, xbox was a core play for microsoft. It is the computer in the living room now, which is huge. Online virtual worlds in the browser aren't nearly as core. My point is that I wouldn't expect them to invest heavy resources in M&A in this area.
I tried using it like 5 times in a span of 2 weeks. Each time it wouldn't connect. It's plauged with bugs, wonky UI and all sorts of things. Not something I expected from Google.
Yeah, because 3D is so much more useful that 2D for ummmm..... let me think about this one for a while. The 3D virtual world will not be coming for a very, very long time. Until we have a cheap and simple way to do 3D presentation the whole virtual world thing is a non-starter; once that appears you can start to talk about how things might, possibly, change.
And 640K will be enough for anyone. There is no point in twitter. Instant Messaging is for kids. The MP3 Player market is saturated. The million dollar homepage is retarded.
Rather than cherry picking failed predictions (btw, the million dollar home page is _still_ retarded) you should try to explain what it is that a 3D digital environment offers that makes it so superior to a 2D environment. I guess the difference between us is that I have actually worked for a failed virtual worlds company back in the day (Electric Communities) and so I know both how hard it is to pull this off from a technical side as well as how many of the things you think people might want to do in 3D are really things they will happily do using regular web and internet services.
Well this is rather obvious. There have been a number of attempts at MMO non-games that were solely for player interaction--but I've never seen one actually work. People play games to have fun, or at least to interact with others to do something that they wouldn't be doing in real life.
Nobody is going to bother installing a multi-gigabyte glorified chatroom.
Actually, this is what lots of MMOs end up being anyhow. Being a leader of an alliance in Eve or a merchant, the most used tools are TeamSpeak and the chat rooms. Lots of tabletop Role Playing Games also end up being social gatherings where the primary enjoyment is the resulting laughter, and the game was just a pretext.
Which is exactly the point. Without the pretext of the game, less people would show up for the gathering, resulting in a lower "resulting laughter" quotient.
As one of the "shy ones", I can confirm that having a shared activity encourages me to come to the event, and ensures that noone is "left out" (as their character has something to do, even if they personally have nothing to add socially). An interaction within the confines of the 'game' encourages more voluntary interactions, not to mention giving people a pretext for conversation, etc.
They are not all flops. There are some MMO social environments that are huge, especially outside the US. Kids like it. Habbo.com for instance has many millions of users, mostly from Finland and the UK.
I'm all for launching early, but Google could have afforded to keep this internal for awhile. Why release something that the lead engineer admits "is not as complete or polished as planned in designs"?
I remember everyone hating google talk when it first came out. No one liked Google news when it first came out either.
There is no guarantees but give it six months to a year before you're 100% sure it's dead.