Shareflow: it's kind of like Google Wave, but... not?

Hi, I'm one of the developers of Shareflow. Although we are flattered by the comparisons to the amazing work Google is doing on Wave, it's true that we are lacking some of the innovative features Wave provides (open protocol, federation, Operational Transformation data sync).

That said Shareflow was conceived of without any knowledge that Google was working on Wave and developed with limited resources on a tight timeline. When we kicked off the project earlier this year, we discussed our ideal vision for Shareflow which looked a lot like wave (open protocol, federation, pluggable widget architecture, integration with external sites); however, as a small team focused on becoming profitable, we decided to focus on getting a product out there for people to use first.

The day Google Wave was announced there was a mix of excitement, tech envy and some frustration in the office about Google releasing something similar to what we had envisioned. Now we are looking forward to the possibilities that Wave opens. A company of Google's size has the ability to push paradigm shifting innovations and new standards. As people become used to new forms of communication and collaboration I believe there will be more opportunity for products like Shareflow. The fact that Google is making Wave an open system means there will hopefully be an ecosystem of products communicating on this emerging standard. As a company focused on innovating in personal and group communication, we're following it closely.

We're continuing to build out Shareflow based on our users feedback. Thanks for checking it out!

Everybody's right in that it's a) not free, b) not an open protocol, and c) not a huge quantum leap past message boards, but I gotta tell you: I was interested in this anyway because I am desperate at this point. I am so sick of email—a dozen individual messages being sent one at a time between one person and another, out of multiple participants, somehow magically supposed to be forming a single conversation; people sending individual copies of a document, editing them, then replying all with a new version, et cetera. It's maddening.

So, what do people do? Generally speaking, one's coworkers are simply not going to sign up for a web app if it's not simple and obvious to them. Email is easy. What tools DO people use like this, to create centralized, threaded conversations, that don't require you to create a new account or pay $6 a month for what (so often) amounts to a message board?

Even the most expensive plan, $80/month, is limited to 200 "flows". So it's not a viable email replacement in the way it seems like Wave might be.

http://www.zenbe.com/shareflow/plans

Looks like it came before Google Wave http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpJEA-dMhDA&feature=chann...

Looks like a message board to me. A lot of these types of technologies seems like variations on what's been accomplished with message boards and bbs's.

We are following Wave protocol. Shareflow will implement it once it settles.

95% of what interests me about Google Wave is that it's an open protocol that anyone can implement. So, I'm 5% interested in this.

Shareflow and Wave address a common issue that everybody has to figure out: what to use instead of email, that old-warhorse

There have to be better ways for teams to work together

Shareflow looks like it is one way!

Nahh.. it is more like drop.io. But drop.io is better.