Bashing Bing, whacking Wave

even worse. After bouncing stuff back and forth, and after people comment on various parts of the thread, adding commentary at the top, bottom and middle of the original message, clarity about what's old, new, moot or relevant seems unlikely.

The other major problem with Wave is its generous contribution to the larger problem of over complexity and information overload. There is so much going on here that Wave fights against the quest for clarity, simplicity and minimalism - the qualities that made Google famous. This is essentially what Microsoft attempted with Outlook, and the result was bloat. " It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping! " I'm not sure we need yet another app that does everything.

What's bad about both

The biggest problem with Bing and Wave is that both are on the wrong side of two technology-design battles raging in the industry. The first is the battle over linearity, and the other is the battle for mobility.

Have you noticed that every massively popular new way to communicate in the past few years has shared the attribute of perfect linearity? First e-mail, then chat, then blogs, then Twitter -- all provided the benefit of strict, top-to-bottom, most-recent-first organization. Linearity imposes clarity on information, and puts the user's mind at ease. All attempts to "improve" these media with non-linear views have failed. People love linearity.

But this is exactly how both Microsoft and Google are trying to improve search and communication, respectively: by introducing non-linearity. In the case of Bing, Microsoft displays results in order down the middle of the page. But there are alternative results on the left as well. It's not a big deal, and Google has introduced similar non-linearity in recent years. But Google got rich and famous by providing a single search box, followed by a single ordered list of results.

In the case of Wave, the many killer features may be overshadowed by the amount of "stuff" happening all over the page. I'd love to have the good features, such as the ability to see the other person typing, but in a single, linear column from newest to oldest.

Finally, constant improvements in the quality of mobile devices have created the possibility of sites that work great on screens both big and small. I want giant companies that play in both spaces, such as Microsoft and Google, to drive this initiative. They should seek ways to get everything working great on all devices, and to avoid systems where there's a PC version and a separate mobile version. Both Bing and Wave appear to be optimized for big screens and unrealistic for phones and other mobile devices.

This was a great week for announcements about innovative new products. But announcements are really nothing more than sales pitches. Let's all reserve judgment about these two exciting new technologies until we can see for ourselves what effect they'll have on what's really important: Our ability to focus, think clearly and make decisions objectively.

Mike Elgan writes about technology and global tech culture. He blogs about the technology needs, desires and successes of mobile warriors in his Computerworld blog, The World Is My Office. Contact Mike at mike.elgan@elgan.com, follow him on Twitter or his blog, The Raw Feed.