Shareflow: It's Google Wave, But Available Now

Written by Steven Walling / July 24, 2009 4:30 PM / 28 Comments

It was inevitable really. Ever since Google Wave burst on to the scene as the next hot thing, someone, somewhere was going to beat Google to the punch and release something comparable. That something is Shareflow, a new SaaS play by New York City-based startup Zenbe.

Up until now, Zenbe has been focused on simple productivity tools like a webmail client and collaborative to-do lists, and this is really their most ambitious project to date. Though the folks behind Zenbe deny any claims that they created Shareflow to explicitly imitate Google Wave, not even they can deny the obvious similarities.

Google Wave Knockoff?

Despite plenty of accusations, Zenbe's team is vehemently denying any notion that Google Wave was the direct inspiration for Shareflow.

It's honestly hard to say how much of the product was copied directly from Google Wave, conceptually speaking. A great deal of the functionality is equivalent, but they were released quite close together. Zenbe's evidence to the contrary is the video they produced (watch it below) in early March prior to Wave's public launch, and a blog post from April that suggests Shareflow was in private beta previously.

How it Works

Whether or not Shareflow is simply an imitator is really beside the point. What matters is that it's available here and now, and it works.

Shareflow is a granular version of a flow-based collaboration; you can either view all flows or just single projects. In terms of content, it handles threaded comments, files of most types can be uploaded and previewed through Scribd's iPaper interface, there's Google Maps integration, images, and video. Like other Zenbe products, email integration is also a big component of Shareflow.

Part of the reason this doesn't look like an imitator is that the two major features that Shareflow doesn't really do very well are real-time document collaboration and chat, both of which are key parts of Wave.

Not A Wave-killer

It's doubtful Shareflow will be the game-changing tool that everyone has predicted Google Wave will be, and that's only natural, considering Zenbe isn't Google. Even if it was, the fact that Shareflow is proprietary means it will never get near the crazy level of adoption and interest that Wave will.

But open source or not, if you're desperate to start working in a manner that is similar to Wave, Shareflow might just scratch your itch until the big day arrives.

Comments

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Posted by: Steve | July 24, 2009 4:47 PM

"how much of the product was copied directly from Google Wave, conceptually speaking..."

That's insane. You think something like this could have been copied since May? That's 2 months to a) get access to Google Wave b) reverse engineer it enough to understand and spec it, c) program it, and d) test it. That's simply not possible.

This is a case of two software teams with similar ideas and attention to current trends inventing something that's (superficially) similar. Happens all the time.

Posted by: Bill | July 24, 2009 4:52 PM

First impression...ShareFlow looks good...Need to check it out..Not sure how it(proprietary) will compete with Google Waves(Open Source)...

Posted by: Ajay | July 24, 2009 4:54 PM

@Bill

I said conceptually for a reason. It's obvious that actual reverse engineering would be impossible in this case.

Posted by: Steven Walling | July 24, 2009 5:00 PM

I don't think it's a Wave killer but it's interesting in that Google just opened up the prototype server code for people to create their own Wave implementation.

http://www.waveprotocol.org/

Posted by: Acrylic Style | July 24, 2009 5:01 PM

There's one big feature missing: The Api. The huge advantage of Wave is its Api and his thousands of developers getting involved. I have not seen anything similar with Shareflow.

Posted by: antoinet | July 24, 2009 5:06 PM

Even conceptually, they could not possibly have copied Google Wave, in fact it would have been even more difficult because design comes before implementation (duh!).

The reason why Google Wave made immediate sense to so many engineering types is because many of them, too, have dreamt of building something similar for years. Only a few have done so, including Shareflow, apparently. So Google Wave is not unique in that regard, but it is very well designed and the Google Wave team actually DID it, which is the most important part, no matter what.

Not sure that they stand a chance against THE wave, unless maybe they get absorbed by a Google competitor (?) and make a few philosophical adjustments.

Posted by: Jean-Michel Decombe | July 24, 2009 5:52 PM

I haven't looked at this yet but don't forget that the BIG thing about Wave is the federation using RFC3920 (XMPP core).

This is really a big thing, without the ability to let people run their own servers ShareFlow or Wave would remain just another Web 2.0 collaboration site, this is the big news about Wave.

Posted by: David | July 24, 2009 6:16 PM

I'm the CEO of Zenbe. @bill is correct, we developed Shareflow completely independently of Wave. It just happens to be similar solutions to the same problem we're both trying to address. (See http://blog.zenbe.com/2009/07/17/the-shareflow-google-wave-ripoff-debate/)

We're big fans of Wave, and specially Wave's open protocol. We don't want to compete with Google, We rather make Shareflow compatible with Wave. The Wave team talked openly about 3rd party implementation of Wave servers, just think of Shareflow as an early example of 3rd party server.

@antoinet, we don't need our own protocol API, as least not yet, because we plan on leveraging google's wave protocol API.

Hope that clears up some of the questions raised in your comments.

Posted by: Alan | July 25, 2009 12:42 AM

I was using Shareflow before Google Wave announced. I'm still using Shareflow, getting used to it and loving it. Google Wave has a lot of potential, but execution is key. Shareflow is simpler with less features that I won't be using.

What's the replay all about ? How different is that than from me simply reading the conversation downward?

Posted by: Mark | July 25, 2009 12:54 AM

Looks more like Facebook/Friendfeed for workgroups than Wave to me.

Google didn't invent stream-based communication... nor is Wave guaranteed to succeed. It may be open and federated, but it still requires adoption in order to communicate with anyone. That imho is where it will fall flat. For example, I agree with @Mark, the replay feature. Are you really going to sit and watch a screencast to figure out who said what and when in a long-form conversation?

Kudos to Zenbe for taking a simpler, focused approach.

Posted by: Frank | July 25, 2009 8:22 AM

Sigh. MacManus needs to prune his writing corps. This post was, politely speaking, crap. You spend half the word count speculating on whether this is a Wave knockoff, then say "but that's beside the point.." Um, Ok, then why did you spend so much time on it?

And really... They copied wave in TWO MONTHS? Look, if you don't know anything about software product development write about other subjects. But to insinuate it' a knockoff, ignore the massive challenge that implies on the dev side and try to weasel out of it by saying it doesn't matter if it's a knockoff is cheap and unprofessional.

Oh hold it... mentioning Wave might drive pageviews. And here I thought RWW was about quality content.

Posted by: rick | July 25, 2009 9:06 AM

Though Shareflow looks simple & elegant I doubt its reach. Mind you there are thousands of better search engines available today but still Google dominates the market. Its the "G" factor!

Posted by: Sandeep Swaminathan | July 25, 2009 9:22 AM

@Sandeep, what makes you think the audience for this is the same as for Wave at all? Wave is a massive consumer product. All of the messaging on the Shareflow product page is about small groups and teams. I don't think they're going after "reach" -- the relevant competition here would seem to be Basecamp, Campfire, Yammer, etc.

Posted by: Frank | July 25, 2009 12:25 PM

Shareflow should probably get to work on bridging to the federation protocol, if they haven't already. They'll be hard pressed to try and leverage the market on feature richness when Wave can propagate to every collaborative nook and cranny, down to installs for individual organisational units.

Who knows, they might come into their own once Wave is up and running, and the market knows exactly what its looking at.

Posted by: slig | July 25, 2009 9:04 PM

I'm in a discussion forum on Google Wave, http://googlewavecommunity.com/forum where I wrote about Shareflow ( Ref: http://googlewavecommunity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=25 ). I can see the CEO of Zenbe is following this post. I'm not much aware of Shareflow and hence just left by mentioning the link. It would be great if U can elaborate a bit more about its functionalities.

Regrards,
twitter.com/upalc

Posted by: Random Surfer | July 26, 2009 1:47 AM

Summary: No.

Details: This is in no way a slam against Shareflow.

I've been using Google Wave since the Google I/O event in May. So, I feel pretty qualified to say Shareflow as it exists today (in the free account I setup within 2 minutes) is pretty much nothing like Google Wave.

At all.

Shareflow could always bolt on an interaction hub for Google Wave at some point, but as of today -- I don't see anything to draw a comparison to.

Google Wave is pretty much only comparable to Google Wave at this point. There are long extended Waves with hundreds of participants still struggling to encapsulate what Google Wave -is- like within the sandbox today. It's very interesting stuff.

Finally, Shareflow had a great account signup process and the reservation of namespace i.e. company.saasname.com is going to have a certain appeal for those familiar with other SaaS plays.

Posted by: Jay | July 26, 2009 9:35 AM

"It's doubtful Shareflow will be the game-changing tool that everyone has predicted Google Wave will be, and that's only natural, considering Zenbe isn't Google. Even if it was, the fact that Shareflow is proprietary means it will never get near the crazy level of adoption and interest that Wave will."

Everyone hasn't predicted Google Wave will be a game changing tool.

We don't know that Wave will get a "crazy level of adoption."

Wave doesn't even exist for consumers to use, and given the scattered nature of how Google releases things, who knows when it will really arrive. Much less get adopted.

So perhaps its early to take this isn't a Wave killer when Wave hasn't killed anything itself, yet.

Posted by: Danny Sullivan | July 26, 2009 11:17 AM

@Rick – chill out, mate

Posted by: Dmitry | July 26, 2009 11:23 AM

Cool story ... it's been added to http://googlewavez.com

Posted by: Rob | July 26, 2009 11:50 AM

I am curious if and how folks would leverage EtherPad's (http://etherpad.com) really real time document collaboration capabilities alongside Shareflow? I think there could be some interesting use cases there, particularly because a lot of folks have compared EtherPad's text synchronization techniques to Google Wave, including the Google Wave team itself (http://www.waveprotocol.org/whitepapers/operational-transform).

While I imagine that Zenbe, like AppJet, has a different product road map and vision from the Google Wave team, it still is worth thinking about how these products will converge and diverge from each other. In some respects, there is a parallel between global supply chain management for manufacturing today, and global supply chain management as applied to knowledge workers collaborating from any point on the globe in really real time tomorrow.

Posted by: Daniel Clemens | July 26, 2009 1:55 PM

I find it exceptionally likely that Microsoft, Yahoo or another large player late to real-time collaboration game that's looking to maintain and capture prosumers (keep adding value, it's the Mandate of Kevin baby) will soon acquire shareflow and perhaps then open-source it. I'd love to see those secret emails...

Posted by: Alvis Brigis | July 26, 2009 6:30 PM

Just read Alan's post and color me impressed with the willingness to use the Wave API. I like your style and vision sir. This could be a GREAT case study for highly effective positive sum development and practices.

@ Alan - Still, I wonder if you are thinking of acquisition prior to that integration - the price might be right at this point in the game when the other people-gobblers are just figuring out how the game is about to change. Nice situation to be in, all things considered. Best of luck! I'm a big fan of both offerings.

Oh, and of course you guys developed independently. It must've taken 1-2 years.

Posted by: Alvis Brigis | July 26, 2009 6:40 PM

They must have been kicking themselves when Google demoed Wave.

Posted by: Ammar | July 27, 2009 12:58 AM

Google didn't invent stream-based communication... nor is Wave guaranteed to succeed. It may be open and federated, but it still requires adoption in order to communicate with anyone. That imho is where it will fall flat. For example, I agree with @Mark, the replay feature. Are you really going to sit and watch a screencast to figure out who said what and when in a long-form conversation

Posted by: Hectoo | July 27, 2009 3:21 AM

@frank Agreed! Sounds logical! Thanks for the awking!

Posted by: Sandeep Swaminathan | July 27, 2009 12:15 PM

Now I'm thinking I should sue Google... As one of my computer classes projects (around 1983) I wrote an assembly program which I called PcPhone. It was basically a *live* chat between 2 computers, hooked by a serial cable (remember... 1983). Every letter was directly transmitted to the other computer, exactly as presented in Wave! Hum, do you think there might have been Google spys back then?... ;)

Sadly, I didn't develop the project further. Was too much boring waiting for the internet... hehe.

Posted by: charlau.wordpress.com | July 30, 2009 8:35 PM

Can't say whether Zenbe has imitated Google Wave but Colayer is already in the market since years.

See Also: Media and bloggers writing about the Future of Communication - Colayer and Google Wave

Posted by: Nida Rafiq | August 5, 2009 5:37 AM