Google to wind up online collaboration project Wave

Google yesterday aborted its ambitious Wave project, an online collaboration service aimed at replacing e-mail. The service, launched amid much expectations a year ago, will be wound up by the end of the year, though the technology behind it could be of use in future Google projects, according to the company.

The Wave project was an attempt to re-engineer e-mail by allowing a group of users to communicate and share information simultaneously in the same workspace on the web. Its most striking innovation was its feature that allows users to see what others were writing in real time, character by character.

However, many users felt the technology was too complicated and, earlier this year, Google was looking to simplify the service.

"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked," Urs Holzle, lead Wave developer, said in a blog post announcing the development.

Wave development team head Lars Rasmussen himself had conceded earlier this year that Wave was "a little daunting" for new users. In a recent interview, he had also said that Wave had suffered significant teething problems.

Wave combines e-mail and instant messaging in a way that fosters rich content sharing, including documents, maps, images and video, and has attracted a small number of loyal followers across the world.