Google Cancelling Google Wave

Google just announced they were stopping development on Google Wave and would support the current pages and users for a short time.  This is something of a surprise and disappointment, because we had predicted six months ago that Google Wave would overcome its shortcomings and become a core collaboration tool.  

As I reflect on this news, I think the tool had some legitimate use and Google contributed to its demise in two fundamental ways.  The first is they left it half-baked for a long time, and wondered why users were complaining.  It is only recently they opened it up to all users, and until then many collaborators had to use other tools to include everyone in their group.  Google also only recently added the notification feature to tell people there were updates in their Wave account, which made it less convenient to use.  And Google left it as a stand-alone service, which required a separate link and sign up to view and edit documents, rather than integrate it into Gmail

The second way is they ignored the need to change the behaviors of users.  In the same way we point out on this site that Wikis are useless unless people get in and write over top of one another, Google Wave looked like a real-time, pretty, email system because people failed to mix it up in their discussions.

My hopes are that (a) over time we will see users get more comfortable with collaboration tools of this type, and (b) Google will introduce some of the better Wave elements into Gmail as features rather than a stand-alone product.

Update on 25 December 2010 by Lokesh Datta

See Related Posts:

• Google Wave: Essential Collaboration Tool of 2011
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• Organizing the UI for a Wiki - Finding the right balance
• Author! Author! Author! - Effective Collaborative Writing
• Iteration rather than Collaboration
• Effective Collaboration is Supposed to Look "Messy"!
• A Taxonomy of Collaboration Tools