Google is dumping Google Wave. Here’s the official quote:

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.

This news came as a complete surprise to me and many others. It seems like just yesterday Wave was released and it was the buzz of the internet. It was a trending topic on twitter for nearly a week and many people were scurrying to get invitations to the beta. Nonetheless, Wave failed for very good reasons.

While I was initially jazzed about Wave, just like many at Google according to the official blog, I was blinded by the fact that it was new and shiny. I blogged about it several times and even created a Google Wave category for the blog. However, when I began Waving with friends, they quickly pointed out reasons why they didn’t like it. It was difficult to use. It was launched without full features like email notifications. It was another mode of communication that was redundant with our existing modes. In short, they felt it was a waste of their time and apparently many people felt that way. They just didn’t “get” Wave.

I haven’t read the other commentary in the blogosphere on the failure of Wave but I think many will be discussing Google Buzz and the rumored Google Me project. I suspect that Wave will be replaced with Google Me and if Google Me gains tractions we may see Google Buzz fall by the wayside too. While I would be sad to see Buzz go, I would welcome a better replacement that achieves more widespread adoption. Frankly, I can’t convince anyone in my social circles to get active on Buzz. Hopefully, Google has a recipe for marketing a service that will compete with Facebook which is now 500 million strong. I’d like to see a superior replacement for Facebook with better governance.

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In terms of the interwebs, the last decade could aptly be described as the search decade. Google ruled the day. As newbies came online Google was the launchpad where they all began. The company grew to a massive $170 billion market cap. It fended off competitors and, in the process, put more than a few out of business. By any measure, Google won the search war.

I predict that the next decade will be less about one single theme and significantly less about search. Obviously, I am on the outside looking in but these are my thoughts: Google is keenly aware of the fact that this transition is already occurring. To counter this anticipated reduction in traffic, Google has diversified into, well, just about everything relating to your preferences. Google continues to focus on its mission of organizing the world’s information. To do this, it needs to collect information. Where is lacks information, it devises a solution for obtaining it. In no particular order:

Whom do you phone? Google Voice.

To whom do you write? Gmail, Google Wave and Google Buzz.

What do you buy? Google Checkout and Google Product Search.

What do you watch on television? Google TV, which is anticipated to launch with Sony next month.

What do you read? Google Reader and Google Scholar, despite some bumps in the road.

Where do you eat? Google Maps, 800-GOOG-411, Google Places.

What ailments do you have? Google Health, although it appears to be a flop.

Where do you work? Google Profiles.

Where do you live? Google Maps.

What do you look like? Google Profiles and Google Visual Search, perhaps tied together one day.

Where are you? Latitude, Google Buzz and Google Places.

Where did you go and where will you go? Google Calendar.

And, I’m sure I’m missing more than a few fronts where Google is amassing information. As we all know, Google collects this information to sell advertisement space on your screens and mobile devices tailored to you. The genius of this all is that people actually trust Google, perhaps rightfully so. Advertisers do not have access to the answers to every question above, only Google does. Google has been and will be fundamentally an advertising intermediary. The game has changed: it’s no longer about finding something.com hidden away somewhere in the deepest depth of the internet but it’s more likely about giving you what you want, often for free, in exchange for your preferences. What do we receive for free? Search, email, voice transmission, video transmission, web apps, operating systems (albeit not directly but, rather, by eliminating the OS “tax” on devices), news, financial information and the list goes on and on. Most of the world has decided that we benefit from this exchange of preferences for free services. It’s really a unique and fascinating model. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, recently used the term “platform provider” to describe what Google wants to become. It’s a unique type of company unlike any other.

[As an aside, contrast the Google model with Facebook which simply wants to collect your preferences and share them with the world. The Facebook model is a far less comfortable compromise for the person the least bit concerned about privacy.]

Google is diversifying in other ways too. Google Apps, the enterprise version of the free online office suite, will probably meet with tremendous success. This arena is monetized differently. No business enterprise wants to share its confidential information with Google in exchange for advertisements. Instead, for a reasonable cost, companies pay for the cloud-based services. Google Apps fundamentally differs from just about every other Google property in this regard.

Google sits on a boatload of cash right now and could diversify into other areas as well. It dipped its toes into the hardware water with the Nexus One but I do not anticipate a significant push in the hardware direction. Google simply wants more, better information and faster. By diversifying, Google has solidified itself as the conduit through which we deposit our preferences and information and donate some eyeball movements and mindshare to advertisements that we might find appealing.

[I will likely write a follow-up piece regarding competition in the "platform provider" business with a focus on Facebook.]

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The Wall Street Journal and Mashable are reporting that Google will soon roll out a “status update” feature to Gmail similar to Facebook and Twitter. This is BIG news and “Make Gmail Social” (which appears in the Mashable headline) is now a trending topic on Twitter.

This is another bold move by Google to dominate the interwebs. Gmail already has an enormous installed user-base (around 150 million users; compare with Facebook which has around 400 million users) and integration with GTalk and AOL’s AIM. Even if the status update feature fails to gain acceptance, at a bare minimum, Google captures more mindshare and could draw some more users into Gmail. In a recent Mashable poll, Gmail trouced Microsoft’s Outlook as a preferred email client (70% to 19% with 11% voting no preference). (Candidly, I reacquainted myself with Gmail after reading the poll and ultimately decided to consolidate my email into Gmail instead of Outlook or Mozilla’s Thunderbird.)

If Google’s status update gains widespread acceptance, then the obvious losers are Facebook and Twitter. The timing couldn’t be more damaging to Facebook, which is expected to have an IPO this year. The status update war of 2010 is brewing, as the Scobelizer post I referred readers to the other day suggested. Perhaps Facebook drew first blood by making its “search” feature more prominent on the redesigned Facebook interface. Google fired back with a largely unexpected Superbowl advertisement that touts its search engine and, now, will go head-to-head with Facebook.

A less obvious loser is Mozilla which is expected to roll out Raindrop soon, a program that integrates social networking, email and instant messaging. Gmail will perform the same functions, it is entirely web-based and it has an enormous installed user-base.

The status update feature also suggests to me that Google Wave will have a more business-centric focus and will not be intended for casual banter amongst friends. Initially, Google Wave was pegged as Google’s answer to Twitter but many users found it difficult to use and invitations to Google Wave’s preview were limited.

Mashable questions whether Gmail will have an option to also publish a status update to Facebook and/or Twitter. While this option is within the realm of possibilities, I believe it is unlikely that Google will implement it. Facebook draws significant advertising revenue away from Google. If Google were to feed the Facebook frenzy, then it would be making a big mistake.  Things might get interesting with the GOOG this year… they said social features were in the works and it looks like they’re delivering, soon.

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Google Wave was a novelty this year–perhaps the pet rock of 2009. It seems like everyone wanted an invitation to preview Google Wave but few actually waved. Maybe there’s a clandestine group of hard core wavers. In any event, the wave shows significant potential and a few videos have surfaced that demonstrate the full capabilities of Google Wave.  Today, Whirled Interactive released a YouTube video that very topically shows off their waving (surfing?) talents. Waving Goodbye to 2009:

[via Eric Zeman @ InformationWeek]

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Kudos to the Google Wave team for soliciting feedback a second time from those who are kicking the tires of the Google Wave preview. This time around, there’s no lengthy survey and 1 through 10s. Simply add wave.stories@googlewave.com to any impressive wave you want to show off to Google or send a new wave to that address with a link to a blog post about Google Wave.

[via Stephanie Hannon @ The Google Wave Blog (Official)]

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Will Google Wave enforce a quota system on users like Gmail? How can this be done?

If you kicked the tires in Google Wave, you might have also noticed the image to the right which shows some ghosted options for transferring files to a wave.  There are similar options under images, some of which are not ghosted.  This prompted me to consider storage capacity for waves, particularly public waves.  Presumably, Google is not planning on allowing people unlimited wave storage. Gmail doesn’t.

So, assuming they implement a quota system, how would that work?  You create a wave.  Your friends dump files and videos into it.  They are stored in the wave, I believe.  Who owns the wave for quota purposes?  Specifically, I was thinking about public waves.  I create a wave about the latest gadget and 40 people upload HD videos into the wave.  Are they counted against my quota?  Alternatively, are those videos stored outside of the wave in their own directories?  If so, what happens to the wave if they delete the HD videos?  Placeholders?

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Mozilla Labs, the group behind the enormously successful Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client, has a monster of a program in the works named “Raindrop.”  Raindrop will be a central hub for online communication.  It will integrate e-mail, RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging into one downloadable program.  Like Firefox and Thunderbird, it will support add-on extensions.  This may seem similar to Google Wave — bringing multiple forms of online communication together into a central interface.  There is one fundamental difference, however.

Google Wave, which is cloud-based, promotes an entirely new form of communication, a “wave.”  A wave is like e-mail, instant messaging and document collaboration all in one.  The wave exists on Google’s servers and is editable by everyone invited to the wave in Wiki fashion.  A wave can also be publicly readable and editable.  It is not e-mail — a communication delivered to multiple recipients who can then reply with a new communication. Quite simply, it is a proposed replacement for e-mail and standalone documents. Ambitious.

Both Raindrop and Google Wave have a common goal, efficient communication and aggregating all of our information.  However, Google Wave is really about a the adoption of a new form of communication, the wave.  It is a call for revolution.

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Google Wave E-mail Notifications

After you register for Google Wave, you will probably want to set up e-mail notifications of new or updated waves.  Receiving e-mail notifications is simple.  Just add wave-email-notifications@appspot.com as a contact in Google Wave.  Then create a new wave to that contact.  Wait a few seconds and then click the star button.  You’re all set.

Click the image to the right to take you to the Google Wave E-mail Notifications project.

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Google Wave Invite Wave

If you were nominated for a Google Wave Preview invitation by an initial waver and received one, you may have received invitation privileges today.  Check your Google Wave inbox for the “Invite others to Google Wave” wave.  Click the image to see a full size picture of the wave.

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Google Wave just put out a survey about the Google Wave Preview on Twitter this evening.  You can find it here:  http://bit.ly/u1N61 .  If you are participating in the Google Wave Preview, I encourage you to complete the survey.  It is very long but covers almost every aspect of Google Wave, including its current deficiencies.  Specifically, I would like to see improved scrolling and a mobile version of Google Wave.  Check.  That is covered in their survey.  They now know that.  Kudos to the Google Wave team for putting out the survey and checking with the users.  I betcha that some of this feedback is acted upon quickly.

This survey is in sharp contrast to Google Voice user feedback.  Google Voice feedback seems to fall upon deaf ears.  For example, where is voice response to caller presentation?  They have only had, ahem, four years to implement it.  I wrote a semi-rant on the Google Voice forum about it that elicited some interesting replies.  You can find it here: http://bit.ly/2B7e0d .  Where’s number porting?  Were the silly colorful business cards we were offered to promote our new numbers a message that it has been delayed?

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Eric Schimdt, CEO of Google, recently spoke about the scarcity of Google Wave invites and the timeline for further rollout.  Less than one week ago, he said, “[Google's Wave team is] getting ready for a much broader distribution. Ready means very soon. Very soon is like weeks not years.”

Many people are still actively seeking access to Google Wave, the next generation e-mail, instant messaging and collaboration service.  A quick search on Twitter for “Google Wave” shows that the vast majority of chatter is still about access.  What can you do to get a Google Wave invite now?  

Some suggestions:

1. Twitter.  I hate to break the news but whining on Twitter may no longer work.  Be mindful of the fact that the initial distribution was, according to some reports, around 100,000 to the general public.  Those in the initial distribution were permitted to nominate up to eight e-mail addresses for additional invitations.  Those in the second wave of invitations were not permitted to nominate people.  There may be as few as 900,000 public invitations in distribution.  I suspect the number is much higher because that may not include developers who had access to the “sandbox” accounts and I am sure the Friends of Google also received some.

2.  Networking. Ask friends or colleagues who were in the second wave to keep you in mind for the third wave of invitations.  This is more of a Facebook, phone call and face-to-face process than tweeting.

3.  Don’t Forget to Sign Up. Sign up on the Google page for a Google Wave invitation. It is unclear whether the next round will be friends of friends of friends or directly from Google to consumer.

4.  Buying/Sell/Barter.  The asking price on eBay appears to be around $5.50 for a Google Wave invitation.  It is a gamble whether you are transacting with an honest person particularly when it comes to intangibles like invites.  Unless you run in a crowd with other Google Wavers, then spending money to communicate with nobody you know may be a poor choice.

5.  Avoid Scams.  The websites that are plastered with advertisements that ask you to donate your e-mail address are very unlikely to yield an invitation.  For a brief while people were tweeting that that received their invitations from those sources but, according to some of the sites I visited, those tweets were actually prerequisites for receiving an invitations.  I doubt a significant number of people received invitations through these websites.

Any other tried and true methods for obtaining an invitation?  One of the best textsfromlastnight.com is: “(248): I can’t believe I wasted a google wave invite on her.”

P.S. In the event that we obtain some spare invitations, they will be distributed to our commenters and @techbottle twitter followers.

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