Comment by jacquesm
16 years ago
That didn't take very long now did it? I never even got around to checking it out.
Aren't they afraid that the next product they announce in this fashion will be met with some scepticism from potential early adopters, who might think 'I'll wait for a bit to see if it stays', which in turn will lead to a cycle where it gets harder and harder for google to release new stuff and get it adopted?
edit: would be nice if they open sourced the code.
They launched Wave in May of 2009. It's not like they yanked it all that quickly.
Microsoft announced, then released, spent $250M on advertising, and then killed a new phone in that time.
To be fair, Google did the same thing in the same time frame with the Nexus One, minus the ad budget.
Sometimes disrupting existing markets and paradigms takes time, patience, and several iterations.
(I'm still disappointed at how quickly they stopped the direct-sale idea with the Nexus One)
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Microsoft made $250M profit yesterday.
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It was announced in May 2009. It wasn't publicly released until three months ago (http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005394-264.html).
It had an invite system like Gmail, millions of users were in before it was "public". I signed up in November 2009 (and last logged in then too).
Given the "this is the future of communication" fanfare, I think some of us expected it to be a long term play.
The public beta was only made available in May or June this year (as I recall).
They yanked it way before it had any chance of succeeding. I wanted to use it and didn't get the chance before they yanked it. I saw the video in early 2009, thought it looked awesome. The website said it would be available to the public "by the end of the year", or something. I kept checking back. It wasn't available, even in early 2010. Finally, in June 2010, I noticed it was available. I signed up. I didn't have anybody to Wave with (so sad). Then a few weeks ago, I needed to collaborate with a friend on a project. I told them to sign up for Google Wave. My friend said "didn't they cancel that?"
I think that is a great point. It makes me think of the future of "Google Me", which is going to take them more than a year to get serious traction as well.