Google to abandon ‘Wave’ project

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: August 5 2010 00:33 | Last updated: August 5 2010 00:33

Google on Wednesday called an end to its ambitious Wave project, an online collaboration service that it once hailed as a potential replacement for e-mail. The service, launched with great fanfare a year ago, will be closed at the end of this year, though the technology behind it could be used in future Google projects, the company said.

Wave marked an attempt to reinvent e-mail by allowing a group of users to communicate and share information simultaneously in the same workspace on the Web. Its most eye-catching innovation was a feature that let users see what others were writing in real time, character by character. However, the service was deemed too complicated by many users, and earlier this year Google said it planned to simplify the service.