The Disappointment of Google Wave

What was set to revolutionise the way we communicated online in 2009, seems to have disappeared from view.  Google Wave, a concept born and developed in Australia, has been given the flick, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday.  This article effectively reports this story, particularly for the Australian audience, by singling out the Australian connection with this product.  By highlighting the Australian association from the word go, the Australian audience is engaged and the article and manages envoke a sense of disappointment in the reader when they learn that the project is no longer going ahead.  The fact that the reporter uses a number of quotes from Lars Rasmussen, the Australian who developed the product, only adds to the sense of sympathy I felt.

The author has used a video link to YouTube to help readers understand how Google Wave was intended to be used.  This video is situated early on in the article and I believe it provides very useful information on what is potentially a very confusing concept, particularly to those who are not particularly web-savvy.  The video itself is a little kitch and cheesy, the kind of style that may be smirked at by the mainstream population, but does effectively provide background information to the story.

In the same vein as the kitch style of the video, I feel the pun-nature of this headline (It’s a wipeout for Google Wave) does little to add credibility to the story, although the use of the Google product name does probably act favourably for the article in Google Search.  However, the author does redeem the credibility by linking to both the official Google Blog announcement that the project was on hold, as well as other reputable sources, such as Mashable for background Google Wave information.