google-waveGoogle Inc first announced the launch of Google Wave in May last year, and the Google marketing department went to great lengths to promote the real-time online communication platform. The aim of Google Wave was to facilitate online collaborations by combining e-mail communication, instant messaging and social networking. While the application made a substantial splash in the market at first with high user interest and great demand for Google Wave invitations, Google found the user adoption rate disappointing. Yesterday, the search engine giant announced the suspension of development for the Google Wave service.

While Google Wave might be washed up, the company plans to maintain the Wave website until the end of 2010 and look at applying Google Wave technology to future applications. Google CEO Eric Schmidt described Google Wave as “a very clever product”, but went on to say that many users had struggled to find a use for the service on a regular basis. Google executives were upbeat about the announcement, saying they are happy to learn from their failed attempt to corner the social networking market, and hope to adapt the technology to create newer, better applications.

By comparison, the social networking tool Google Buzz is performing well. Despite the criticism and privacy concerns that accompanied the integration of Google Buzz into Gmail and Google Maps in February this year, Google tells press that the platform has tens of millions of users and has grown to be an accepted extension of Gmail.

Google has no plans to halt the progress of Google Buzz, which despite its flaws seems to be holding steady. This begs the question, are we as Internet users and social networking junkies becoming desensitised to a lack of privacy online?

While Google Wave has officially crashed, it will be interesting to see what initiative Google uses next in the quest for social networking dominance. Rumours about the development of a social networking platform called Google Me continue to circulate, and it will be interesting to see what Google developers have learned from the mistakes made with Google Wave and Google Buzz.

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