Google Wave is Dead. Anyone Surprised?

Not everything Google touches -- or develops -- turns to gold. Witness Google Wave, the "real-time communication and collaboration" Web app that various computer mags and productivity sites trumpeted as the Next Big Thing.

Wave goodbye to Wave -- Google's pulling the plug.

Want to know how often we wrote about Wave here on Business Hacks? Zero times. Know why? Because we couldn't see any benefits -- unless you count confusing, unintuitive ways of doing things we're already doing elsewhere as benefits.

You'll have to pardon the Schadenfreude, but I was really getting sick of all the blogger slobbering over the service. I can't say I knew it would never amount to anything because I never came out and said it would never amount to anything. (Still: I knew it.)

So, what are the lessons here? One: just because something has a popular brand on it doesn't mean it's going to change the world. Two: just because a company has innovated in the past doesn't mean it will innovate forever. (Exhibit B: Microsoft.) For more lessons from the Google Wave failure, check out ZDNet's Lessons from the Google Wave failure.

Me, I'm just going to sit around feeling smug for the rest of the day. That's a kind of productivity, isn't it?

What are your thoughts on Google Wave? Rest in peace, or good riddance?