10 August 2010
When Google Wave came, I jumped. In fact, my entire staff at KAYWEB jumped with joy.
We jumped so high that we credited it for what it was - the most revolutionary communications tool since the email was invented all those years ago.
The keyword (forgive the pun Google) in the above sentence is 'was'.
On their Blog, Google acknowledges that when it launched at its Google I/O Developer Conference in 2009, "we showed character-by-character live typing, and the ability to drag-and-drop files from the desktop, even "playback" the history of changes-all within a browser. Developers in the audience stood and cheered. Some even waved their laptops".
But Google concedes "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked".
Google, long considered the company that turns to gold whatever it touches, has now registered numerous consecutive failures with Google Wave and its Nexus One phone the most spectacular so far considering their very popular releases.
Google Buzz, which is Google's answer to Twitter and Facebook, could be next for the chopping block as it too has had a disappointing take-up.
Despite being embedded in Google's hugely popular email client Gmail, Buzz has failed to dent Facebook's and Twitter's growing market shares around the world.
What Google must be wary of is that every shutdown in the Social Web arena results in the loss of loyal fans; many of them developers who spruik Google and the coportate torchbearers of their innovations.
If Buzz is headling downhill, I suggest Google pulls the plug as soon as possible to avoid disappointing more people who land on it, begin thinking about developing apps and extensions for it.
Many did this with Google Wave, and their initial "jumping for joy" is now a sombre version of Michael Jackson's moonwalk backwards to place their ideas and developer tools back into the cupboard.
At the time, Microsoft was about to launch its latest in a long line of search engine offerings in Bing; this time with a mass advertised release designed to take market share off Google's online search empire.
Google panicked and shot early with a buggy version of Wave to dominate trending topics on Twitter and Facebook, as well as dominate water cooler discussions among developers.
Next time, I hope Google reconsiders.