Soon we’ll be giving Google Apps customers access to many more Google services. In the meantime, we want to share an update on Google Wave, a web app for real time communication and collaboration, which has been available to customers in Labs since May. Since we first showed Wave as a developer preview at Google I/O last year, it set a high bar for what was possible in a web browser. But despite its compelling features for particular tasks, such as discussing and developing content in small groups, Wave has not grown as quickly as we would have liked. For that reason, we don’t plan to continue to develop Wave as a stand-alone product, though we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year. We have already open sourced several components related to Google Wave, so our customers and partners can continue the innovation. In addition, we will work on tools so that users easily "liberate" their content from Wave.
You can read more on future plans for Wave on the Google Blog. We are proud of the work the Wave team has done, which has pushed web technology forward, and we will extend the technology for use in other Google projects. Finally, we are hugely thankful to those who have been testing Google Wave with us over the past couple months.
9 comments:
It is so sad to see wave go. I am a scientist who has started using wave as a way of writing scientific papers with collaborators both in the neighbouring office, and across the world. With wave, we can put the latex source of the paper in one, version tracked place, and simultaneously all write the paper together. There is no emailing of versions backwards and forwards, no waiting while one person edits, fearful of conflicting with their changes. As one collaborator said to me, it is like we are painting a picture together, at the same time. We are able to see and respond to what each other are doing in real time. By writing a paper in this way, it has let us talk and chat while writing, and has strengthened the collaboration and made the science better. It feels like my collaborator is sat next to me, while they are in reality thousands of miles away. It is useful also not just for papers, but also for funding applications and project planning. I have had google voice chats with a collaborator in the US while we both edited a project plan and funding plan together. The ability to see each other's cursor, and see what we both typing as we were talking was incredible, and so useful.
Please keep the wave servers running, or please add to google docs an application that allows for live typing into a shared, automatically version tracked document (from which we can copy-and-paste the latex).
I only recently started using wave in this way, but when I did, it was like the penny dropped. Yes - this is what wave was made for. I am sure that many other scientists would also find this way of writing papers and managing collaborations refreshing and useful and I am currently showing and persuading other students and collaborators to use this approach. The idea of a live typing, automatically version tracked, shared document is excellent, and really useful. When combined with google voice chat it is invaluable. Please don't let this idea fade away.
This comes very unexpectedly and I think this is a mistake. People are slow to change their communications habits, so adoption of a new platform like Wave may be fairly slow in terms of growth initially. It also takes a while for people to figure out all the things they can do with a platform like this.
We had started using Wave for a lot of collaborations and research note taking. In the last few months, after we figured out the potential of the platform, we also have started to develop interactive computer science curriculum software for it, and also started using it as a front-end for scientific data analysis and grid computing. The interactive, real-time nature of the platform, together with the fact that Google takes care of all the boring details like authentication, user management, rendering etc. really made Wave a platform for which there is no alternative out there.
I think you should have given Wave at least three years to prove itself and for people to start to figure out what they can do with it. By discontinuing it so quickly, you raise questions about relying on building processes or software around Google infrastructure in general. Sadly, the damage is done now.
Shame people just did not get Wave... however the fact that it didn't integrate email did not help especially in enterprise. Maybe if it had been it could have got more use.
Buzz will be next to go and it will probably never get into Enterprise. It should really be in enterprise asap - before companies start looking at alternates like Yammer and Google misses out.
Wave not being intergrated into gmail helped to kill it. Something as simple as giving users the option to recieve updates via email might have helped it.
Overall people just did not get it.
Buzz will never get into Enterprise ( coming in a few months back in Feb 2010 ) which is a shame because it like Wave could be useful.
There is a definate need for it - just look at the uptake of Yammer
Very sad news to hear, I was in the middle of getting the biggest community college in Texas to Go Google, and use Google Wave as a primary collaboration tool. Really appreciate all the help the Wave Team has provided, and really hope Google changes their mind, specially since they only gave it less than 3 months as an open product for all to use! :'(
Why World? WHYYY?
i hope wave improves and ads some stuff to google talk/gmail
I think that the decision is rather short-sighted. Sure, nowadays we expect innovative products to take off much faster than in the times that email was first invented (1973!) But old habits die hard, especially when they are deeply embedded in our daily routines, like email is.
Google Wave is a framework to build upon which can take us many years into the future. I am confident that others will make use of the technology and popularise it, even if Google itself abandons it. There's just too much good stuff in it to ignore --conversations rather than messages, real-time collaboration, rich content and tools- even if throwing them all in at the same time was quite overwhelming for many users.
This is a real shame. We use Wave extensively at work for our office communication and collaboration. In the space of just 4 months is has replaced the bulk of our email traffic. Please don't abandon it completely!
I'm VERY sad to see Wave going... we have it enabled for our Google Apps domain, and use it extensively for project management with internal employees as well as outside contractors. Honestly, I'm heartbroken, and really don't know how we're going to replicate Wave's functionality when they pull the plug!
Are they killing the Apps Wave servers as well as the public Wave servers?
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