Google Waves Goodbye - The beginning of the end for Google Wave

When TJS staff were given sought-after access to Google's latest project the industry hype was all about how Wave would completely change the way we communicate electronically. It was hard not to want to believe it, after all, with the might and financial backing of Google it seemed like a pretty good horse to back. Back in November we were all set, Google Wave accounts open throughout the office and messages flying back and forth. The concept was great, but the reality was a little different. For starters, after only a few messages your 'waves' became messy and a job to determine where you were in the flow of a message (if it hadn't crashed on you first). After a lot of persistence a few of us stuck with it. It's a lonely place though being an early adopter. With so few friends / family actually taking up Wave it soon became a tool you could only really use to communicate with a few likeminded techies..how dull was that? I'm afraid that from that point on, its value and use quickly faded. So, with the news today that development on Google Wave is to cease it appears as though it will indeed suffer the same fate as Google Lively, another revolutionary idea that died at the hands of an increasingly inquisitive internet generation. Was Google Wave ahead of its time? Yes, I believe so. Was it a complex solution looking for a problem? Certainly, but you've got to admire Google for trying. After all, how many companies could you suggest such radical ideas and be given the resources to go off and try it? Here's to the next 'big idea'.