Google Stops Developing Wave

Google pulls plug on Wave development.Google Wave was a Web-based program that lets people chat, share files and collaborate on documents in real time.

"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. 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," wrote Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow on the Google blog.

With innovation sometimes come failure. It's good to try new things and sometimes you have to make the decision that it's not worth to pursue it further. Karim R. Lakhani writes in an article titled "Google Wave Decision Shows Strong Innovation Management" that was published in Harvard Business Review:

"Google should be commended for both launching and shuttering Wave as it shows that their managers both embrace creativity and innovation and are also cognizant of allowing failure and dealing with it rapidly and efficiently if the creative efforts do not bear fruit. More of us should be following in their footsteps."

When I read the news, I realized that I also got an invitation to Google Wave, but I have to admit, that I never even tried to use it. It came highly recommended by my son, but somehow I never even bothered to use it.