"Cheering makes no difference, you’re still in the game. Google Wave is instant messaging on steroids. Email, photo galleries, annotated requirements docs, youtube vids, and snarky convos about code and colleagues can all happen right in IM, the tiny sidebar of abbreviated text where developers like to park themselves. This is a technology grown directly out of a culture of avoidance where communication is preventative, where social networking dispenses with the social. Technologized introversion is what the machine needs from you, to build its next features. IM is not quite synchronous, but it is fast, so it’s JUST LIKE meeting in person, without the person, right? No, it’s not just like it – it’s better. It’s more efficient. It keeps other people even further away. It’s closer to the machine."

via Hilobrow