Google Wave was one of Google’s most prominent new services. Now it is one of its most prominent flops. The reason for it is quite obvious – not enough takers. Let’s be honest here, many users who have used Wave didn’t know why and what to use it for. Sure, it has some advantages but apparently not enough for an average consumer to see.

At the time of launch, Google described the tool as “how e-mail would look if it were invented today“. Google Wave combined e-mail, instant messaging and features that allowed people to collaborate on documents in real-time. Users could see edits and comments written by other “Wavers” as they were typed. As an avid Wave user, I would say that it was a powerful collaborative tool and was very good at what it did and I can think of many people and organizations who are going to miss Google Wave when it is gone.

“We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.” — the official blog post read. The product was created by two brothers Jens and Lars Rasmussen, who were also behind Google Maps.

Unfortunately, many people who tried Wave complained that it was too hard to use or that they did not understand why they would use it. May be, Google wave was trying to do many things in a new way that people weren’t accustomed to. And while it may it have been great as a productivity tool, I don’t think Google pitched it well when they introduced it.

However, here is some consolation if you liked using Google Wave. “The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.” — the post went on to say.

So are you going to miss Google Wave — Google’s own collaborative tool that had so much of potential in it and yet ended up being a flop?

In Google’s own words — “Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more…”

I have joined Wave and have been using it (with some good amount of success; mind it, it has very great potential to become a n awesome collaborative tool) ever since it launched. In case, you still haven’t joined Google Wave yet, here is your chance… I have some 25 Google Wave invites to give without any freaky conditions. All you need to do to get invited is to drop a comment on this post with the email that you would like to receive the invite at.  If you aren’t on Gmail, you’ll need to create a Google Account when you receive the invitation. Google allows you to create an account name as — yourname@googlewave.com as well.

So what are you waiting for? If you have not received a Google Wave invite yet and looking for one, drop me a comment here and I will happily send you the invite within minutes. And in return… you will have to pay me $99 via Paypal well you need not do anything to return the favor (I would love to see you visiting us again though)!

P.S. The invites will be given away on first-come-first-serve basis. I have only 25 invites, so you better hurry up if you need one!

“Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more…”

Google Wave Features:
1. Near Real-time
2. Group-ware with shared Edits
3. History
4. Interspersed with Text, Media, URLs, Blobs etc
5. Version-ed
6. Time-threaded
7. Collaborative

Recently, much before the arrival of Google Wave, I have seen several friends who have almost stopped using email altogether. They simply message each other on FaceBook, using each other’s walls or the private messaging or the live chat. Unfortunately FaceBook wasn’t designed for that at all. So it’s a mess (even bigger mess than Email today). Based on such experience, I’m inclined to stand behind Google Wave, and hope it succeeds as a concept and hope that people don’t get stuck on what they see on wave.google.com.

Will Google Wave kill Email? Well, we are yet to find out. But, a large part of online population think that email means Outlook Express. In that way, Outlook is a platform in itself. But, can Wave replace this? Or will it always run as a parallel for early adopters and geeks? We are yet to witness a time when we actually can go ahead and dump Email for corporate communication and start communicating via FaceBook or Twitter! So it is probably safe to assume that Gmail (and other forms of Email communication) is here to stay. That being said, is wave positioned to replace the MS Exchange or just be a geeks alternative? I still wonder.

Interestingly, Google Wave is still lacking must-have features to complete the idea of being a mainstream communication tool. Unfortunately, when those features get added, it will become anything but overly complicated. On the other hand, Email is simple – from, to, cc, bcc, subject – that’s it! Twitter is that simple, too. FaceBook – even simpler! Google Wave – not simple now and even less so when fully-featured in the future.

Due to these reasons it’s not very clear yet in which way Google Wave is going to go. But it’s definitely going places – and not just to Brazil! Anyway, one must admit that Google Wave’s this so called ‘new’ style of communication is rather exciting, if a little daunting at the same time! I can’t see it catching on right away, because most people don’t like change. But when it does (which is probably inevitable) its implications could be huge; by huge I mean really HUGE! What do you think? Have you received a Google Wave Invitation yet, by the way?