The Wave
Receding Tide
Apparently Google decided to cease development of Wave (but maintain the site at least for the remainder of the year) because users have not exactly found good uses of the product and thus adoption and usage is not exactly ideal. After the initial fanfare and hype about Google Wave, I didn't quite use it. I personally think that the recorded typing might be useful under certain circumstances but not always and so users should be allowed to easily disable it. The arrangement of the discussions should also be in reverse chronological order so that you don't have to try to scroll down a really long discussion.
I discover these main ills because I did use it for a collaborative project I did recently. The system is useful for us in general but there were times when it was down. Seeing your friends type in real time might be fun but without a powerful computer, it lags and you might be tempted to reply when your friend have not finished what he wants to say. The good thing is that almost everything is recorded and we can always check back when necessary.
Yet the 'failure' of Google Wave represents the success of Google; by working on many different projects, Google manages to explore multiple ideas at the same time. While different amount of resources and efforts are dedicated to different projects, they are willing to terminate even a high-profile, hyped project show that their model is successful. The ability to create such a 'market-based' testing is immensely useful to the firm. Much must have been learnt from failed experiences and we really should celebrate all that.
August 8th, 2010 - 00:37
Unfortunate that Google has been introducing a lot of new projects that have failed eventually. It makes good learning lessons and is encouraging for those who believe that failure will eventually lead to success, but I guess sometimes Google is not trying hard enough to make sure that what they roll out will really be able to beat the competition.
August 8th, 2010 - 14:13
No, the idea of market competition is really to roll out as much ideas as possible and letting only the best ones live. A successful company is not one who doesn’t fail but produce winners in the process of failing. Apple didn’t get the iPod correct for the mass market until its 4th version or so; they will forever be remembered for the iPad but does anyone know about Apple’s iTV or that they invented the first PDA called ‘Newton’? It takes failures for successes.