Google Wave a Wipeout?

Well, it has been about four months since Google started sending out invitations to try out their newest communication platform, Google Wave. Google created a huge demand by releasing this motion picture length demo before Wave was released. I fully expected Wave to be a game-changing tool (and it still may be), but as of yet, it does not seem like people are adopting the technology very well. After sitting back and thinking about it, here are my opinions on why Google Wave has not caught on:

1. Exclusivity – I fully understand why companies like Google build a user base using “by-invitation-only” release. It allows them to scale up the load the software places on their servers by not having everyone sign up at once and also gives them a chance to make bug fixes before too many people are involved. This strategy worked great with services like Gmail and Google Voice, but it seems to have hindered Google Wave. Why? Well, with Voice and Gmail there are alternatives that could be used while users wait on invitations to the new service. With Wave, it was like a user gets an invitation…and now what? If their contacts were not also already Wave users, it seemed pretty pointless to use the service. This is the biggest hindrance to Wave, in my opinion, and could change as more and more people begin to sign up.
2. Slow – Google Wave has also been slow as Christmas to use…at least for me. Performance improvements would definitely make Wave a more attractive communications and collaboration platform.
3. Another inbox to bring to zero – Honestly, people already have enough services and websites to check and get their unread counts to zero. What I think might be nice for Wave moving forward is for the functionality to be integrated into part of Gmail and the stand-alone Wave site to be phased out.

If you haven’t had the chance to surf Google Wave, leave me a comment and I will hook you up – I still have plenty of invitations to give out.