On Wednesday, 4 August, Google has announced trough its official blog that company is no way going to continue once appreciated product – Google Wave – An in-browser communication and collaboration tool. Launched a year back, Google Wave created much anticipated hype when ‘invitation to join’ was getting sold on ebay for $70/-
Developed by two of the guys behind Google maps with a small team in Sydney, Google was betting to nurture the concept to unify communication over the web. It was a hybrid of email, web chat, IM, and project management software. It used to feature the ability to replay conversations because it records the entire sequence of communication, character by character. Because of this, discussions were also live in Google Wave: you could see your friends type character-by-character.
It was not all. Google also tried to wash out traditional file attachment process. In Google wave, an amazing feature, people can just drag and drop any file from their desktop to Google wave. It loads the file and sends anyone in the conversation without any eddo. It’s also embeddable, so you can embed Google Wave conversations on any blog. Compare to any other email client, gmail, hotmail, rediff, Google wave was more focused on contact management and presentation.
Decision to rip off Google Wave isn’t much of a surprise; adoption never seemed to materialize for Google Wave — even after it dropped its invite-only status — as users struggled to find meaningful use cases for the service. The Up and Downs of Google wave was also an interesting factor to see. The way it was launched and got hyped in 2009, almost disappeared in similar fashion after few months.
In any event, Wave represents another disappointment in Google’s long line of attempts at social, an area in which the company is now reportedly eyeing a completely new approach. Shutting down Wave, it would seem, is a logical step in moving on.
