Good riddance, Google Wave

Ever since the launch of Google Wave, I've used it a handful of times
for both work and pleasure. We gave it a fair shake here at DVICE,
trying to use it to plan projects. Just last week, some friends of mine
used it to coordinate a dinner party. In both instances it was clumsy
and awful.













When we first heard about it,
it seemed like such an awesome idea. A service that combines email and
chatting, wiki-like forums and an open-source environment for
clever-types to crank out unique widgets? It sounds like a surefire
winner, but there was one problem: Google's various services already did
all that, and they didn't look as awful and ugly as Wave does. (I don't
get to talk about it in the past tense, sadly, as it's still up and
available for you to log in to.)

So, why has Google finally decided to pull the plug on Wave? "Wave
has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," Urs Hölzle, senior
VP for operations, wrote on Google's blog. "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."

That means that some of the features Google tried to make popular
with Wave — we're guessing the widget support, for one — though
hopefully Google will keep that godawful layout away from my precious
Gmail.

For the fans of Wave out there, Google has vowed to help both of you
out by developing tools though would extract your saved projects on
Wave.