Adam sent you a Wave

It was supposed to be an email killer. But I’m sending you this via email.

“Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today,” they said when the communication platform was announced in 2009.

It became the talk of my tech community and I got an early invite to check it out. Updates appeared in real-time and bots grabbed data on command (or automatically). Google Wave was flashy and may have even been useful.

Only problem?

I forgot to check it.

As a supposed email killer, it didn’t send email notifications.

Maybe if it had, it could have stuck around long enough to kill email. Google discontinued it the next year.

Another email killer appeared in Slack. I was skeptical as ever (perhaps because I worked at SendGrid, an email provider).

Of course, Slack had staying power. Have you ever missed messages in Slack? They have a way of finding you… desktop alerts, push notifications, and… email.

Slack sends a ton of emails.

In retrospect, Wave may have been doomed from the start.

So is a lot of content—but it doesn’t have to be. You can make small changes that give your blog posts, tutorials, and guides a better chance of success.

Learn to read the warning signs in my latest post, Top Technical Content Mistakes to Avoid. There’s a whole section on doomed content.

Wave’s approach could have better fit into its users’ current reality. Your content can, too.

P.S. My Technical Content Checklists are available for sale to give you and your team a way to sanity-check your content.