You just made me nostalgic for talk.

No kidding, this is just the traditional Usenet version of threading being made part of the protocol. (Modern web and e-mail threading custom all suck compared to what is the norm now.) While I can see the reasoning for making the system aware of threading from the start, it doesn't seem to solve any of the real problems e-mail and IM suffer from. (All related to signal-to-noise...)

Agreed -- it looks like Wave will dump MORE information overload upon me. I want less, dammit! Less e-mail, less IM, less pictures. Give me only what I will find of utmost value.

I totally agree with you abossy. I just wanted to mention that some people might actually "like" having information overload. People who are information addicts/junkies, or people who have attention deficit disorder, or people who are unskilled when it comes to "focusing" on a single task. There might be two sides to this...

I'm also curious if there's a pattern between introverts and extroverts when it comes to info-overload like this. Assuming spam isn't a problem, an extrovert may enjoy interacting constantly online, with many many different people, over the course of a day. An introvert may be the exact opposite. This would correlate well with "offline" introvert/extrovert behavior.

So the term "information overload" would have a different meaning for an extrovert and an introvert. For the former, it would be spam, or unwanted conversations. For the latter, just too many conversations which have little obvious value (small talk, etc...).

I've not seen any studies comparing introverts-to-extroverts when it comes to online information usage patterns (if anyone knows of one, please post it! :) ). So I'm totally theorizing here without any data.

I totally agree. I really love imagining a filtering/triaging feature being a part of Wave. If incoming messages were automatically (or with just some amount of learning) given an importance rating, that would make my mind much clearer.

Have you heard David Allen (GTD) talk - he makes a good point that it's not "information" overload that the problem (otherwise your head would explode the first you walked into a library or logged into the Net) - instead it's the "potential meaning overload" - each little email may be very important and so pulls our attention.

I've always found it a good distinction

Great, now we will have spam that tries to game the system to be flagged more important.

The article mentions that you can turn off instant update for these messages.

I didn't get that far, but I assumed that it surely would. Still, there will be many people who will be unaware of this, at least long enough to make an initial snafu.

There is an obvious "hide while typing" check box (At least in the current version).

How did you get hold of it?

I saw the demo at google IO. Attendees have early access to develop.

And then the person at the other end thinks "wtf is this guy hiding? Is he even talking to me?". Technical limitations can be very useful to avoid awkwardness sometimes (like the fact that if I don't answer an email within 30 mins it's not taken as a snub - unlike a text message people don't presume you have constant access).

I'd rather change the social norms than continue working with limiting technology - wouldn't you?

I wonder if this new functionality would entice more people to learn touchtyping over time, since the difference between slow typists and fast ones would be directly observable. Right now if someone sends IMs slowly you're never sure if it's just a case of the other person doing other things or thinking or rewriting... (even with a "is typing" indicator).