It's got a lot more focus than Wave had at launch. Wave's big problem was that it introduced so many new features at once, in one product. No one could figure out what to do with it, and it was very confusing.

This looks much more focused, although its unclear what it offers over Hangouts or FB messenger. The only feature it seems to add over facebook's product is a focus on conversation subjects versus social groups.

It's like IM/texting with the exact layout of Twitter. Are we at a point where it's almost impossible to innovate anymore? Is anything created in this space going to be only slightly different than _______?

That was my first thought as well. Not sure about the 2.0 part though.