Comment by motters

I was also a lone waver for a long time. I think the same happened to many users, so the way in which it was launched should have been different. However, I don't think that the failure can be blamed entirely upon the launch strategy. Performance of wave was really poor, and as the conversations became longer the refresh rate really dragged.

I think a lesson here for Google is that when they initially launch a product to a small number of users, they should really try to encourage the early adopters and make sure that they don't end up stranded with no other users to talk to, because those early adopters will become evangelists if they're well treated. Perhaps they should have just kept Wave quiet and then launched it a year later to everyone.