In a blog post today Google pulled the plug on their “never quite caught on” web based collaboration tool named Google Wave. Originally introduced in May 2009 as the hoped for successor to email – it touted features such as real time collaboration and multiple revision of documents.  Wave gradually succumbed to what appeared to be lack of interest by Google.

At a time when everyone worldwide was moving to the mobile web, Google Wave sorely missed a way to access data while mobile. All viewing and entry had to be done on a desktop computer.  In addition for a product that touted collaboration the use of groups was embarrassingly simplistic. Google Wave never supported the creation of groups of any kind. Rather it required you to setup a second group structure on another service called Google Groups and invite people who you wanted to include in a group on Wave to join the Google Group.

Confused yet? Apparently so was everyone else. Google Wave just never caught on. Development seemed to slow to a snail’s pace.

Today Google announced that enough was enough and Wave would be defunct at the end of 2010 as a public product.

Google says goodbye to Wave

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Users of Google Wave, the much hyped collaborative “replacement” for email, will rejoice that they finally are able to remove other users from Wave’s. Prior to this new functionality if you added a user by mistake to a Google Wave you had no way to remove them (?!). Now you can access the “remove” button and take them out of the conversation completely.

This will be a handy feature for instances where you add someone to a Wave by mistake. We use Google Wave internally and I’ve often had to manually sidestep several similarly named contacts to select the name of my office manager. If in the past I selecte the wrong name I’d have added someone outside my organization to a potentially sensitive Wave document – with no way to remove them!
via: “What’s New” Wave:

Anyone with full access to a wave can remove any human participant of group, including him- or herself. If you have been removed from a wave, you can view a copy of the wave as you last saw. Waves you have been removed from are listed with a red “X” in the search panel. In private replies, only the creator of the private reply can remove participants. An undo option is shown when you remove someone. The new interface also applies to robots.

Google Wave

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I just noticed that Google Wave has received what seems to be a long overdue feature. The ability to hide all those inline replies which can be made to a Wave and tend to also make it look very cluttered. Previously you’d have to direct Wave participants to make comments either in a separate blip or suffer the ugly appearance that their inline replies left. Now by clicking a particular blip’s pull down menu you’ll see there are two additional options. Hide Inline Replies and Show Inline Replies. Check out the example of what hiding an Inline Reply does.

Once I’ve selected “Hide Inline Replies” all the notes that my Mom has made on a contact sheet for our business instantly disappear – leaving me with a much cleaner looking screen.

This new feature is on top of the March 4 unveiling of email alerts for new activity within a Wave you are participating. Here’s hoping the new features continue to roll out to make Google Wave even more useful for group collaboration.

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This morning (actually Wednesday evening – but I just noticed it this morning) Google Wave went live with a new feature that allows for notification of new activity in waves you are participating in. The feature is activated via your inbox and will send an email based on a timeline (immediate, hourly, daily, never) that you decide. More screenshots follow.Here’s where the main notification is set in Google Wave.

Once you’ve enabled the notification Google Wave is smart enough not to send a notification for every single reply. You’ll only get one notification until you go back into the Wave and then the notification for that particular Wave will be reset so that you’ll receive replies.

Here’s what the Gmail inbox notification looks like for a Wave that I’m participating in.

Here are the rules for notifications as per the Google Wave blog:

When you’re added to a new wave, or a wave that you are on changes, we’ll send you an email with a short summary of the text and links to go straight to your updated waves. Rest assured, we know waves can change a lot, so we will only send you one notification about a changed wave until you have logged in to look at it (i.e.: if a wave changes 10 times after we send the first notification, we won’t send 10 more emails). Waves you have open also won’t trigger updates.

via: Google Wave Blog

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Google today announced another social sharing site. This is going to be a feature launched from within Gmail as a label called “Buzz” directly under the Inbox label on the left side of your screen. Google is looking to compete with both Facebook and Twitter in the currently hot area of status updates and sharing of items like pictures and videos. Within the week all Gmail users will have access to Buzz. Sadly Google Apps for Domains users – where it might be super handy for inter-company collaboration – will have to wait another two month. The new service looks an awful lot like Friendfeed and begs the question of what happens to Google’s last “great” product announcement – Google Wave.

Google Enterprise

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I have 8 Google seven Wave invitations let. Don’t bother emailing me to ask if I know what people are using Wave for because as of now it appears to primarily be used by techies to talk to other techies and ask the question “what the hell do we do in this Google Wave”?

If you’d like an invitation use the comments.

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