oh internet

A failed Google project.

Summary

Google Wave was a real-time collaborative editing software framework with which Google hoped to merge features from email, instant messaging, social networking, and wikis. As with most new products announced by Google, people were extremely eager to obtain invites, going so far as to purchase them in auctions.

There was one problem: nobody knew quite what it was supposed to do, how to use it, or even why to use it. Apparently it was designed for use in collaboratively editing documents or emailing other users, but everything about it was confusing and after too few users picked it up, Google gave up on the project and discontinued it.

Being user friendly is a large part of good software, and the Google Wave was as far from friendly as possible. It came jam-packed with more on screen options and buttons than a Soviet ICBM control station.

In 2010, Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President of Operations at Google, stated "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."

Origins

Google Wave was named after slang from the television show Firefly.

Current status

Discontinued. Apache picked up development after Google abandoned it and is currently trying to figure out just what to do with it. They have listed it as "incubating".

Facts

Related Pages

Google

Google Chrome

Google Videos

Orkut

External Links

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