As we say goodbye to Google Wave, just what has it taught us about the future of internet communications? Is Wave to be branded as a failure or simply just an evolution on the long and twisty road of web technologies. Has it in fact created a significant enough ripple in the online space to warrant a second chance further down the line or was it always doomed from it's inception?
Google Wave was unveiled at the Google I/O conference just over a year ago in sunny San Francisco. It swept the audience away (no pun intended) with it's promise of revolutionising the internet communication space. The concept of a real-time email service that had within it, the social features of an IM client while bringing in the dynamics of an all in one information resource with it's embeddable maps and Posterous-like items. Now a year later and Google has confirmed it's stopping developing the entity that is Google Wave. Ultimately Wave may have failed for a number of reasons, that it was too confusing for your average user to utilise properly, or that not enough users were able to use what is evidently a social-orientated tool or perhaps simply that it doesn't fill a hole for users as Google may have intended. I'd gotten onto the Wave bandwagon early on in it's roll out thanks to a Beta invite from a Twitterer I'd been following. And herein lies the first problem with Wave. The very limited Beta roll out of Wave meant that there was a colossal scramble for
invites to be first on this gleaming new offering Google fed us. As the economist inside points out, too much demand and an inefficient supply quickly leads to shortages and that's precisely what happened. There was a "bedding in" period where new users wouldn't be given invites and you'd have to wait for some random allocated time to be up before you'd get all of 5 invites. What's a user to do in this time? Send a message to himself?
invites to be first on this gleaming new offering Google fed us. As the economist inside points out, too much demand and an inefficient supply quickly leads to shortages and that's precisely what happened. There was a "bedding in" period where new users wouldn't be given invites and you'd have to wait for some random allocated time to be up before you'd get all of 5 invites. What's a user to do in this time? Send a message to himself? When Wave was finally rolled out, the next main obstacle in it's path seemed to be explaining what Google Wave was. In the usual fashion of Internet companies these days, a series of instructional videos with a monolithically patronising tone tried to explain what Wave was to users. Except I think in this day and age where instant messaging has become so simple that my Luddite of a father regularly uses it and email is more universal than snail mail, we can't introduce yet another medium of communication unless it's either dead simple or would blow our minds. In my heart of hearts, I don’t think Google succeeded in either of these goals.
Wave also wasn't without it's many gripes. My personal usage of the system consisted of having group conversations with more tech savvy individuals who were in my Twitter circle. At first it started well, the real time talking although very creepy but also a dash of awesome, didn't hold up for long or complex conversations. Perhaps this was because it was still during it's beta stage of 
development (then again, what Google product isn't these days) and wasn't the finished article but often conversations that went longer than 100 messages would cause severe lag. I'd tested this with three OS's (Windows 7, OSX, Linux Ubuntu) and across browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari) and found the same results. Although it was a gripe, it made Wave infinitely more convoluted with multiple conversational threads popping up left right and centre to avoid the dreaded lag which would make typing out messages simply undoable.
development (then again, what Google product isn't these days) and wasn't the finished article but often conversations that went longer than 100 messages would cause severe lag. I'd tested this with three OS's (Windows 7, OSX, Linux Ubuntu) and across browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari) and found the same results. Although it was a gripe, it made Wave infinitely more convoluted with multiple conversational threads popping up left right and centre to avoid the dreaded lag which would make typing out messages simply undoable. So what will happen to Google Wave? Will it ultimately be thrown into the pile of failed technologies (soon to be accompanied by it's friend Buzz I suspect) or is this promising enough a concept to continue? I don't think this is the last we've seen of Google Wave. Of all it's flaws and many of them there are, it did arrive onto the scene with good intentions. Throughout my use of Wave, it always felt more like a proof of concept than a consumer product. If we take it as a concept alone, then yes it brings some very clever ideas to the table. Group collaboration has matured into an important part of the working environment with project managers and even corporations utilising sites like Google Documents and the soon to be released Office Live to aid them in group activities. Ultimately I think we'll see Wave slowly amalgamate itself into other projects such as Google Docs and perhaps even into the Big Daddy that is Gmail. It'll be particularly interesting to see if Google.me will emerge as a social networking site to challenge the likes of Facebook and if so, I could definitely see a finalised version of Wave being popular. So although respectable in it’s aims to change the way we think about technology, if it isn't simple or it doesn’t knock us out of our proverbial shoes, the chances of success will be slim to none but as this is Google, it’ll probably be taken apart and used for parts like a broken down Ferrari.
I'll give the final word to Google CEO Eric Schmidt,
“We try things. Remember, we celebrate our failures. this is a company where it’s absolutely okay to try something that’s very hard, have it not be successful, and take the learning from that.”
What is your opinion of Google Wave? Do you see this venture as a short-term failure or a long-term success or both? Feel free to leave a comment in the section below or on my Twitter.
