Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Wave Goodbye Google

Google Wave, dead or alive?

After more then two years in development, and testing by an Australian team (ontop of another year under closed invite mode), Google Wave has met a short end, just 2 months after it's release to the world.


When it was announced Sergey Brin told developers that Wave would "set a new benchmark for interactivity". Wave might be best described as a real time messaging platform and was let loose to the world in May 2009 at the Google I/O event (in San Francisco). Maybe we just weren't ready to try a radical new way to collaborate (we have been using email since the 1970's). Will we ever be ready to try new things?

An example of a great Google Wave, Cloud Computing (leave a link to your favorite wave in the comments below).

If you still have no clue what this "Google Wave" is, you could think of it as part email, part instant messaging, part twitter. But Google wave is/was (too early?) so much more. real-time collaboration that had infinite possibilities and the perfect company to take it to the world.

Google Wave will still stay alive (for now), says Google, although it may eventually come down (please no). The one good bit of news is that Google has said they will open source part of thier code and let users "free" their data (other parts of the code were already open source, we love you Google).
Posted by drew on Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Labels: , , , , , , ,

9 comments:

  1. Steven Romero, IT Governance EvangelistAug 6, 2010 06:34 AM
    Google will provide their explanation and many will venture their guesses. But will we ever truly know why Google pulled the plug?

    Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
    http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/
    ReplyDelete
  2. My fav wave - updates on new features by the Wave Watchers and Wave fans: https://wave.google.com/wave/ref?o=googlewave.com%252Fw%252Bl11DvVi0F

    Second fav: Wave Watchers Helpdesk https://wave.google.com/wave/ref?o=googlewave.com%252Fw%252BiCPVPLZkwD
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  3. @Steven: Yeah, we'll probably never know. My husband believes it might have something to do with another wave of tech they have planned for true social networks by Google. (Google pitched Wave as a social network, although it really didn't work that way.)

    You have your own thoughts?
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  4. @Deborah: I've heard talk of google gearing up for battles with facebook (Google Me). I'm thinking they didn't really care if people used wave or not, they probably just wanted to get the tech done, get some user feedback and then focus their efforts elsewhere. I think a lot of the work they put into wave will be used in other projects and I wouldn't be surprised if this was all part of their master plan! Once I find out more I'll probably write a blog post about it.

    @Steven: I was having a bit of a look at your blog, nice work. You've been doing this stuff a lot longer than I have =)
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  5. Yeah, Wave really was ahead of its time. What a pity that Google stops the development on such a powerfull application.
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  6. Read the article thanks to a reply to one of my tweets on the subject of google wave.

    I'd have to say I'm not particularly in love with google. Google's predisposition towards dropping projects that interest me has me leery of using any more google applications. In the rapidly changing world of tech, a giant such as google should have some stability. As is, there's no guarantee that even google docs will remain where it is and functioning in a capacity that serves my needs.

    The fact they're targetting facebook and trying to form a social network like that, is in direct opposition to their motto. Even now, It's quite clear their motto means little.

    The deal they have formed with verizon, albeit denying early claims, is still very close to a version of the early claims. It denies Verizon and other companies from affecting normal broadband wired internet connections, but, cuts off exactly what everything's moving too. Everyone has mobile broadband via their iPhone, or via cheap devices from Cricket or other cellphone carriers and mobile internet is only going to become more ubiquitous. So, precisely when we need controls on the spectrum, wires, and everything to lower costs, google's proposing ways to make cell phone carriers and mobile providers even more control. This is -wrong-. Consumerism works to an extent, but, when you have too many sheeple that simply aren't capable of saying 89.95 is too much to pay for unlimited cellphone use, it fails.

    The deal with Verizon aside, google has plans to start relaxing it's controls on the information it knows about you so that it can start selling that information ala facebook. This, too, is wrong and 'evil'.

    Then... on top of that Eric Schmidt CEO of Google is also predicting the end of Anonymity on the internet. Claiming that it's what governments will want. However, that'd be horribly convenient for google as well. Anonymity is an important security feature of the internet. Google should be doing everything it can to protect this.

    I am openly searching for alternatives to google in most aspects. It's quite clear that the only person anyone can depend on to keep a service going as long as they intend to use it is themself. So, for the foreseeable future, where I would have previously gladly invested 5-10$ in google a month for the tools they offer, the better investment is 10$ a month on a hosting plan and the occasional 10$ domain registration and hosting my own tools and services secure in the knowledge that currently noone can take -those- tools away from me after choosing to adopt them as a solution to some of my issues.
    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the link via Twitter.

    Love this line, but can't agree with its conclusion: " real-time collaboration that had infinite possibilities and the perfect company to take it to the world." In my Google Wave shut down post I ponder whether Google can step away from what seems to be a belief in Silver Bullets. While they are great for werewolves, not so much for collaborative technology.

    http://www.terrigriffith.com/blog/2010/08/09/silver-bullets-cant-hit-target-google-wave-shut-down/
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  8. I like Nanen's comment,

    I agree Google isn't as stable as it could be, google has quite a bit of market in the apps/productivity market. Android anyone???

    I don't understand how Google can all of the sudden be pushing for social, they are NOT experts in this field, Facebook & Twitter are; leave it to the experts.

    Google is/was supposed to be a search/keyword ads expert and Google Docs is a great addition because they allow cloud computing and its searchable within your docs account/access.

    I am seeing lots of other social media and Linkedin isn't exactly "social" IMHO, but they seem to be somewhat grouped along with facebook twitter, DotBlu, etc.

    I would like to see Google work with Twitter & Facebook rather than trying to go head to head.

    That being said, I prefer to use google or any major service rather than hosting it myself because doing it myself could never be as good as it could be for the masses. Don't get me wrong, I host my own blog, I can't find anything better to replicate what I can do on my blog.

    So unless I am a technical knowitall I won't be doing it myself, I'll be looking to companies like Google to provide those, not at the expense of losing my privacy since I pay for the services (Google Apps and Android).
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  9. Hi It is unfortunate that Wave is on its way out. It indeed is a good technology though.

    Regards
    Pervara
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