The demise of Wave, Google's browser-based collaboration platform, is one of the search giant's rare flubs, compared to recent wins such as the increasing adoption of its Android mobile OS.
Google announced Wednesday that Wave had failed to win over enough users, despite several innovations and some fervent loyalists.
"But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," Urs Holzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow, wrote in a Google blog. "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 is more than holding its own on other innovation fronts. This week, The NPD Group said Android is the mobile operating system to beat in the U.S.
And while Wave has ended its run, features are being added to other Google offerings, such as Gmail, Calendar, Voice, Reader, Code, and App Engine .
Still it was hard to say goodbye to Wave and the innovative features that seemed to hold out hope to rival Microsoft SharePoint
"We have always pursued innovative projects because we want to drive breakthroughs in computer science that dramatically improve our users’ lives," Holzle wrote. "Last year at Google I/O, when we launched our developer preview of Google Wave, a web app for real time communication and collaboration, it set a high bar for what was possible in a web browser.
"We showed character-by-character live typing, and the ability to drag-and-drop files from the desktop, even “playback” the history of changes—all within a browser," Holzle added. "Developers in the audience stood and cheered. Some even waved their laptops."
Alas, the Wave was a wipe out.
