Google Wave bites the dust following poor take-up by internet users

Google is set to ditch the Google Wave collaboration platform before the end of the year, according to a post on their official blog.

Despite garnering positive reviews of the service, which allowed web users to dip in and out of collaborative working projects, the latest statement on the Google blog suggests that there were simply not enough takers to make it worthwhile continuing.

The project got launched just under a year ago, but like other Google projects that fail to meet the grade it is being retired gracefully. Wave, it seems, is simply not attracting enough interest to become anything other than a trial venture. While it’s not clear just how little impact Wave has had on internet users, the official Google blog suggests that the project has been useful for the team involved even though it hasn't been a runaway success.

Urns Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations wrote on his blog: " We have always pursued innovative projects because we want to drive breakthroughs in computer science that dramatically improve our users’ lives. Last year at Google I/O, when we launched our developer preview of Google Wave, a web app for real time communication and collaboration, it set a high bar for what was possible in a web browser."

"But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, 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."