Google Wave's Last Breath

Google Wave- R.I.P - Google on Aug 4th 2010 announced that further developments on WAVE will stop by this year's end. In it's official blog -http://googleblog.blogspot.com/- Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow was reported saying, "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked". He also said that although Wave will no more be a standalone product but it's technology will be used in other projects of Google. To those of you who are still clueless about what I am talking and what exactly is Google Wave, I mean what it was, let me put it in simpler terms. 

Wave was first announced at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009, and was opened for general public on May 19th 2010. Wave was, in it's true sense, a high end web application for real-time communication and collaboration. One could actually start a new discussion or a blank wave and invite his/her friends to join. Now, how was it different? Because, once you start a new discussion and invite friends to join, all of you could write your opinions, suggestions, information,etc. about that particular topic LIVE. Yes, it was as good as you all are sitting together and talking. Any friend can then write, edit, add pics, reply any time. It was a real smooth app. Adding friends to discussion was so easy that all you needed to do was to "drag" your friends pic into the column-what was called as Wave, and your done. 

Wave meant different things to different people. To some it was a good way to invite friends and chat together,discuss, brainstorm,etc. My friend Shweta says, "I see it convenient and economical; even a small conference can be conducted in official way speedily- that's a good feature". She's just so right, but i guess Wave was just not good enough. We were engaged in something else which provided us with not similar but equally efficient app to communicate with friends, share information, discuss, comment, or like. Yes, you got it, I am referring to Facebook. Facebook's popularity had soared to great heights by 2009, people learnt a new way to communicate, share, like(facebook ishstlye). 

So why Wave didn't sweep us off our feet? Well, at this point I would like to share what Nicholas Boothman once stated, “The cheapest, most effective way to connect with others is to look them in the eye". Facebook must have taken this very seriously, it not only looked into our eyes, but it almost hypnotized us. By the time Wave hit us, we were blind. Also Wave was not "engaging users". Facebook instead kept on giving us more reasons to "like" it ;). 

As pointed out by Hölzle, Wave didn't stand the test of user adoption. Early adopters didn't seem to have positive experience. 

I feel Wave's user interface was not friendly as compared to Facebook. For user like me and others who are 24*7 into social networking Wave was not difficult to comprehend, but for an average user Wave didn't seem to be friendly. 

Some might argue here saying Wave was not meant to be like Facebook, but when an user gets similar features and even much more on another platform then why he would surf on a wave like this ;) ?

To conclude, I would say Wave was a successful experiment. Why? Because although it failed in its mission, it did prove it's unique technology. 
If you would like to experience Google WAVE, then click on the logo and open in a new window.

What you think why Wave failed, what could have saved it? Will it be back? Share your view with me, all are welcome.

I think may be Wave needs to revamp itself. A makeover, little more masala, and then served piping hot. Will Google bring back the wave in a new avatar? Will, time will tell us. But before leaving let me tell you a secret, Google seems to busy cooking something new. What it is? 
Will tell it to you in my next post. Till then...

Wave your hands and say Goodbye Google Wave