The Fast Life and Quick Death of Google Wave (2009)
Google introduced Google Wave—a Slack-like “communications and collaboration tool”—in 2009 as an alternative to email. The idea was to give users the ability to create discrete conversations between different groups, based on particular topics. At the time of its launch Wave was heralded as the way of the future but, unfortunately, the app didn’t live long. In 2010, Google stopped active development of Wave, citing a lack of “user adoption.” As has been previously noted, most people just didn’t know what Wave was, didn’t how to use it, nor did they understand why it was being foisted upon them. The application was officially retired in 2012, and the project was later taken over by the Apache Foundation, which also eventually abandoned it. RIP, sweet Wave, gone before you could have been a better version of Slack.
