Google has a fairly inconsistent record of development when it comes to innovative products. Remember Lively? They pulled the plug on that fast – even though they probably had enough interest and users to keep it going. Now it seems Wave is going the way of Lively.
Or something like that – the official announcement was a bit unclear, especially since some of the code has already been released open-source. The basic gist of it is that Wave will no longer be standalone… but somehow integrated into other products. And the website will go away by the end of the year. The main reason given was that “Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked.”
That is probably going to be the closest Google will ever get to admitting failure. It wasn’t that long ago that they were predicting the death of email, that email was obsolete, that Wave would forever change the way we communicate on the web, etc. I like Google, but they aren’t exactly that great at eating humble pie.
The hard part for me and millions of others is that we still never figured out what exactly Google Wave is…
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Google Wave, but I did recognize that it was innovative. I know that I predicted that it wouldn’t make it, but I would have liked to have been wrong just to see where it could have gone.
I guess we will never know now.
Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.