Google Wave is a victim of poor marketing, their own fans and great ambitions. By the time you read these lines, a loud project, whose announcement raised a good part of the network to your ears will already be history. It will be closed closer to the end of the year. Another coin will fall into the piggy bank of the unsuccessful projects of Google.

For some reason it is generally accepted that if the company has taken up the project Google , Success will definitely wait for him. This is not at all like. By the number of failures, Google is approaching Microsoft. The difference between the two giants is that Google does not savor its failures. It is worth showing the project to show slack – and it immediately stops spinning, and after a while they close it. So the company retains its image.

Similarly in the basket were Google Lively , Google Videos , Google Answers , Google Notepad , recent Nexus One. Now their company will replenish Google Wave. However, her story, despite the sad finale, took shape from the very beginning in a completely different way.

Google Wave – a project of the Brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussenov. To understand what kind of people it is, it is enough to know one simple thing – they created Google Maps , One of the most successful Google projects. It was thanks to the popularity of the cartographic service of Rasmussen who received their own developers' team and were able to do a new project. A few years later – on Google I/O in May 2009 – they announced it.

Say that the announcement received a wide resonance on the network – this, consider, is nothing to say nothing. Information about Google Wave spread on the news sites. Everyone rushed to discuss the “wave”, and then froze in anticipation of the next miracle service of Google, who promised, according to many observers and bloggers, a revolution in the Internet communication.

But something went wrong. What exactly? Let's figure it out.

About a good project, put a word

When the brothers developed Google Maps, they primarily put on a friendly API (application program interface). In other words, they offered the user not just a card, they gave him the opportunity to show himself on this map. On Google Maps you can celebrate your home, your company, publish advertising, place a photo.

Developing Google Wave, the Rasmussen brothers decided to play on the same field. They presented the project as open as possible for improving, aimed not so much to communication, but at the interaction of users.

Google Wave is an information environment for setting tasks and discussing projects. This is a communication platform with e-mail functions, Internet mixer, chat, forum, Wikipedia and social network. Topics of discussion you are free to create yourself. Each new topic, a new discussion – this is a wave. The project is based on the concept of a modern forum, only in our case you do not need to spray on dozens of sites, all the topics are in one place.

After all, as it usually happens: go to one site, find an exciting topic, join or open your topic, then go to another site where you find another exciting topic, then another site and so on. Each site has its own password, your own nickname, your friends, its own rules. Unknown.

The way out is Google Wave. All you are interested in the topics in one place. Any discussion, any conversation begins here. The very need for sites simply disappears, all communication goes directly through the service.

True, the developers themselves, explaining the essence of Google Wave, went from the concept of mail and the examples were given by a little others.

Nowadays, it is quite difficult to agree on something and even more so to conduct a full-fledged conversation with the help of email-it is slow and inconvenient. First you send a letter to the addressee, then get an answer, send something again, forget that you ruled, send it or retroactively attach the necessary file, discuss, agree. In general, horror. And when there is a need to share data with someone third, and this third, in turn, consult a couple of interlocutors … Confusion is provided to you. It all ends with the fact that the thread of the conversation will be lost, and you will find yourself at a broken trough with a bunch of lines, comments and a dozen letters.

Google Wave, according to Rasmussen, perfectly solved this problem. No letters, no SMS and negotiations in ICQ. The only thing you need is to open the service website, create a new wave and attach to it with easy draging mice you need to be the interlocutors.

The developers suggested switching to a single service forum, which opened the door to a completely different world-the world that largely ignores the network itself. With the help of Google Wave, you could create, conduct business correspondence, chat with friends, agree on meetings (Google Maps map was placed right in the wave window), again, play.

He is so special

The interface of the service only at first glance seems bulky and confusing. In fact, it is no more complicated than Gmail.

Google Wave working area is conditionally divided into three columns.

The first, the narrowest, is divided into two blocks – the navigation menu and the list of contacts. In the navigation menu, work with the service was carried out, the search for waves by themes, the choice of folders with the waves (they could be grouped). It was even easier with the list of contacts: all your postal contacts ended automatically, ending @gmail.Com. The second column showed waves in which you participated or to which you could join. The third column was the most important: it reflected the content of the dedicated wave. This is where the most interesting thing unfolded-conversation.

The conversation was presented in the form of a hierarchical tree structure. The nearest analogy is a page of comments in LiveJournal. Only in Google Wave the exchange of messages went in real time: the interlocutor saw every letter that you gained.

Due to the fact that the discussion could break up into several branches of messages, there was a danger of getting confused in a conversation. So that this does not happen, the developers came up with the function of reverse scrolling: with its help it was possible to trace in what sequence comments arose in a particular wave.

There were such small pleasant details that provided user comfort, the service had a sea. The main problem was to figure it out. No wonder almost the entire presentation is the Rasmussians devoted to the review of the functions of the service. According to their idea, in the wave it was possible not only to communicate, but also to play, edit documents, upload photos of photos, watch a video. Moreover, after the release specifically for Google Wave, at least a dozen applications were created that open the ocean of other capabilities. True, few used the basic functionality of Google Wave-what can we say about additional functions.

Revolutionary rollback

Google Wave fans were programmers, various technologists who quickly understood the potential of the service. It was they who violently clapped at the end of the presentation of Google Wave on Google I/O.

It's funny, but it was their delight that played a cruel joke with the project. New fans blown up the network with messages about the innovative service. Thanks to their activity, their long languages ​​about the project learned literally everything. Few people understood what the service was, but the desire to test it caused unhealthy excitement around a limited number of keys and logins to the test version of the project. At one time, the price of an invitation to the Beta test Google Wave reached Ebay to $ 70.

However, many of those who were so eager to try out Wave quickly left the project. The service was not designed for an ordinary Internet, accustomed to the most simple applications. To just take advantage of the internal search, the user had to know his syntax. In other words, if you wanted to find a wave on a specific topic, you should have driven into the search line not just the “Gambling Journal”, but “TAG: Magazine_Gromania”. Few people were ready for this.

Many also scared away the overloaded interface. It was created far from dummies. To deal with him, it was necessary. Just dropping out, sticking the keys and getting the desired result – this is not about Google Wave.

However, these minor roughnesses-along with the exactingness of RAM and periodic drying at the beta testing stage-did not particularly worry.

Worried the question with which users came: and why?

The idea of ​​the absence of a clear concept appeared immediately after the presentation in 2009, when the project was only presented. Rasmussen and the company focused on demonstrating the features of Google Wave, various features, details, missing the main thing – the essence.

The creators of Google Wave proposed a lot of opportunities, but never explained who the service is really necessary.

Mistakes

The audience is a keyword for any project. When you represent the work on the market, you must know who your buyer. It is under his requests that you form your advertising campaign, it is to him that you are addressing the product, but – most importantly – you are developing a project for it. If there is a concept, but the audience has not yet been defined, either its search begins or an attempt to adapt to the entire market. As a rule, the second option leads to the closure of the project.

This was Google's first mistake.

The project was positioned as the service of the future, the next revolution on the "gu". It was understood that it will become a new standard of Internet communication, the main place of verbal battles on the network. At least the authors hoped for this. However, they are easy to understand. Which mother does not read her son to the president?

However, the developer team understood that for success their project should have a number of features. The matter did not get up for this: Google Wave was taught to translate on the fly (you could talk in real time with a burning black -eyed Spaniard, not knowing Spanish), drag pictures directly from the folder to the browser, provide users with simultaneous editing of the document, draw tables right in the dialog box – And so on and the like.

As a result, the project was swollen. It seems that the authors decided to make Google Wave as multifunctional as possible. It turned out Frankenstein-Light: nothing on the face, but with close acquaintance, the head is spinning. Wanting to cover all the potential customers of the service, the Rasmussen team got the project and made it inaccessible to simple users, that is, for the main mass of users.

This is the second mistake of Google.

The casual audience pecks at any loud and bright advertising campaign. Even if the campaign is intended for another audience, the casual mass will react to any noise significant on the network of the network. There was plenty of noise around Google Wave, and the service attracted public attention. Another thing is that the acquaintance of an ordinary user with Wave ended when he only entered the service page.

But those who had enough patience, ingenuity and time to understand the interface also left. It was inconvenient to use the service as an Internet mixer-Google Wave is too cumbersome. Moreover, there was no one to communicate with: there are few users, there is no content (and now – and is not expected). It was not everyone who needed to solve corporate problems for which Google Wave was perfect.

Rasmussen brothers created a service that is ideal for working together on creative projects. The problem is that, like any genius, they could not understand what exactly they created. So the company missed not only its loyal fans, but also the potential market, which the creators of the service did not even know.

When the Rasmussins appeared in the Central Office of Google and showed what they worked on for two years … No, the leadership did not close the project, it, consider it, was self -fired by introducing Google Wave to the public in the form of an illiterate diamond. You know, such a diamond is sometimes taken as a regular cobblestone.

Rasmussen understood the position of their leadership, so more than once or twice asked for the help of independent programmers. It seemed to them that the point is a lack of features, in the dampness of the code, in the number of applications. In fact, I just needed sensible marketing.

It was the third mistake of Google.

Now the most devoted fans of the service are small teams working remotely. Indeed, it’s hard to come up with something more convenient for designers living, for example, on both sides of the Atlantic. The service provides them with fantastic opportunities for interaction. The same applies to programmers, screenwriters, artists who in real time can work simultaneously on one specific project as if they are at the same desktop.

The tragedy that the Google management either did not see the potential of the service, or considered that this audience was too small, and decided to try to attract wide masses to the project. What this led to – you already know.

We will imagine – we will judge us

The presentation of Google Wave was an hour and a half. During this time, the developers could not characterize the application in two words, on which almost two years worked. The audiences presented all the features, all the possibilities of the future service, said that he can, as he can, in general, conducted a brilliant excursion, without answering the main question – that this?

The lack of a clear concept was very clearly designated by numerous articles on the announcement: not one of them could really reveal the essence of the new product. New Mail? Replacement "ICCA"? Improved forum? New version of the usual Gmail? The developers nodded their heads and added something like: "Yeah, and our program also knows how and that".

Perhaps that is why the rhetorical question of Lars Rasmussen – as it would be e -mail, if it were invented today – the audience took too literally. https://chilli-reels-casino.co.uk/ Many journalists clung to the comparison of Google Wave with e -mail. So the theory was born on the network that Google is preparing her killer.

True, the “murderous” topic did not start with the announcement of the Rasmussen brothers. Supernatural popularity Twitter , The growth of the number of users of social networks forced analysts to think about the onset of a new era of communications. Digital age without e -mail, the century in which people communicate in real time, and information about themselves is placed in statuses and profiles. Centuries in which bulky letters become anachronism.

The lack of a clear concept, perhaps, was the main reason why Google's leadership decided to show a “wave” ahead of schedule – before the service is sanded. And the concept of Rasmussen either did not fit the new project, or they really did not have it. The thought to come up with something from above was contrary to the policy of the company. As a result, it was decided to show the project in 2009 on Google I/O before the friendly audience of programmers, which at the beginning of the presentation more than once or twice asked to help. But it did not work out.

* * *

On August 4, 2010, two and a half months after the official launch, Google announced that she stops developing Google Wave as an independent project. As a separate product, it will most likely last until the end of the year, then part of its functions crosses Gmail.

This message surprised many analysts, but left the users indifferent. Analysts did not expect that the unpopular project would be closed so early – and the residents of the network in silence approved the decision of Google.

Be that as it may, there were those who are not indifferent to the fate of Google Wave. Service fans launched a signature collection site in support of the project. For a month, resource Save Google Wave collected about 44,000 signatures (you can express sympathy for the project at Savegooglewave.Com). The figure, let's say, is completely frivolous. Google will not stop. On Wave, as a separate independent project, a cross is put; So that perennial efforts do not disappear, Google transfers the Google Wave code to the public-thanks to this, a few supporters will be able to raise their Wave servers and create local waves on their own equipment (more on the site Waveprotocol.Org).

The future of the Rasmussen brothers team is more vague. Perhaps she has already been dismissed, people were transferred to other projects, and the brothers were reduced to position. Perhaps everything is not so sad and the team is preparing for a new swim, for a new wave ..