Google are as well known for the technologies they’ve let go as the ones they’ve tried to push into the market, and it now seems like Google Wave has become the latest communication application by the company to be effectively cancelled after an announcement this week. It’s a reminder to everyone that even with the team and finances available to Google, sometimes new projects designed to change the way we use the web simply don’t catch on, no matter how dramatic and game changing they might sound on paper, or even during development.
Google Wave was set up to change the way we use email by turning online conversations into something resembling a private wikipedia entry, allowing people to discuss complicated projects in a more dynamic and interactive way. However, despite a promising launch very few people actually started using the technology. The academic community – which regularly discusses in depth projects – was probably the biggest fan of Wave, but even they couldn’t save it from Google’s eventual decision to stop developing the technology.
Speaking at the Techonomy conference in California, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said:
“Our policy is we try things. We celebrate our failures. This is a company where it is absolutely OK to try something that is very hard, have it not be successful, take the learning and apply it to something new.”
A deeper explanation about why Wave was cancelled was posted on the Google blog by senior vice president of operations, Urs Holzle:
“Despite … numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked,” said the company’s senior vice president of operations, Urs Hölzle, in an official Google Blog post. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.”
Google mentioned the lack of actual promotion about Google Wave – which many people have still never even heard of – as another piece of company policy. They believe that if a technology is truly filling a gap in the market, it will be used regardless of the amount of promotion. An interesting opinion which worked for the search engine, but if Google really want technology like Buzz to rival the likes of Facebook, they are going to have to do more than sit back and hope for the best.
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- Surfing the Google Wave – The Latest Social Media Craze On September 30th Google launched its newest product offering, Google Wave. With only 100,000 initial participants, access was limited to those with connections or a...
