Google today announced plans to discontinue Google Wave, its real-time communication and collaboration platform that launched only a few short months ago. Initially hailed as an "email killer," we were quite intrigued when we first laid eyes on Wave last year. So much in fact, that two TechSpot staff members purchased early invites on eBay to check it out.
As fascinating as the service was, we didn't use it beyond a few brief sessions. Why that is, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was just too great of a paradigm shift, or it simply didn't meet our needs. No matter the case, it seems we weren't the only ones to abandon Wave amid waning curiosity. Google officially blames the project's death on a lack of user adoption.
Although development has halted, the company says it will maintain the site "at least" through the end of the year. Additionally, it's creating tools to let users easily "liberate" their content from Wave. Core parts of the code are already available as open source if you'd like to pick up where Google left off. Love it or hate it, say your piece in the comments.