Seth Godin just sent me an email about how fighting Google search cannot be done trough incremental innovation (disclaimer: he sent to tons of others 
) . [1]
Google’s reply to search with Google Wave, may be what Radical Innovation is all about… Amazing: Twitter says: Hey world, real-time is possible and search is now, not a few hours ago. Google’s reply takes email into what real time may actually mean.The smart thing might be the fact that email is still the big activity on the web and they are building on a huge asset, set by GMail. This can be huge, because they’ll jump into a user base of 100 Million users, more than Twitter may have by now[2]. If you think product activation, this is huge. Google will be able to engage their search assets and skils into it very fast and do they know how to do it!
But a question arrises:
Are young people still using email? Some research and direct observation suggests No. They seam to be using mobile and Facebook, not email… This may be important in the long-run since youngsters are early adopters on experiencing and living in the web [3]
User Experience
Google Wave is web (huge trends here, everything is going to move into the browser). But it is also very cluttered and that doesn’t feel like Google anymore. Google is slick, it’s to the point, it’s getting in and out in 0.7 seconds. Google Wave is a massive load of stuff into the window, as never seen in Google aps before. This may hopefully change as the product matures ‘do.
NOTES
[1] I have to say, engaging but too much of the old talk. The subject is just plain simple IMHO
[2] I estimated a while ago that they be close to 90M pretty soon, against TechCrunch’s 50M.
[3] Just because they lack legacy, ie, they start using the web without being bound to old paradigms
