The Death of the Wave

Google has announced that it will no longer be developing it’s Wave web application. RIP. The technology was incredibly innovative, with tools such as context linked spell-check, that could truly begin to revolutionise the way that web applications, and/or browsers work.

Real-time collaboration seemed to be such a wonderful idea. When I first heard about wave from an incredibly excited Rhodes Computer Science Honours student I imaged groups of people, all sitting at their own computer in their own spaces, in their own time-zones working on long and interesting documents – perhaps environmental policies, or proposals for projects to liberate women – but it seems that the reality isn’t as rosy.

SA Businesses ignore Facebook

2.6 million South Africans use Facebook, and study released by MWeb early in 2010 shows that social networking has become conventional in South Africa. Despite South Africa’s growing love affair with sites like Facebook, businesses are not yet taking advantage of the new platforms.  

Friendship 2.0 looked at sites like Facebook and MySpace as well as applications like MSN Messenger and found a reasonably large number of South Africans are quite well versed in using these sites. So, local business are then missing out on a captive audience. Although 84% use the internet for work related activities, only 16% use social platforms to promote their businesses. This is remarkably low considering how well business and social networks go together in countries like the states.