A lot of the abandoned projects have simply been superseded by newer technology. Google Wave and Google Buzz have both been overshadowed by Google Plus, which is getting a lot more adoption from mainstream users and technocrats alike. Google Desktop began way back in 2004, but its instant search action has been largely duplicated natively in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and OS X. The last version was released in May of last year.By April of 2012 all the above services will be completely shut down.

As Google expands into more and more markets with the incredibly popular Android, and the considerably less popular Google TV, this sort of this is unfortunately inevitable. There are alternatives for nearly all the services that are disappearing, but there are certainly users who will miss them. Google Desktop should at least continue to function in its current state, and Google has already open-sourced the software behind Wave for the truly dedicated to roll their own.

[via Cnet]

While announcing a product with a huge event is one way to go about things, sometimes you just want to release something in a small fashion. Quietly. That’s exactly what Google Labs has done with Google Shared Spaces. It’s open right now in a very non-public fashion, and it’s meant to showcase the technology that powered Wave, but in a far more creative way.

The Spaces are built around “gadgets,” of which there are currently 50 to choose from. These Spaces will then be able to be shared through pretty much any means you can think of, thanks to a simple link. Whether that’s from a tweet, an email, or a status on some other social networking, it will be easy for people to invite others to come and enjoy, and interact, with their Space. And, if you know JavaScript, you will be able to make your own gadgets, which people can then interact with.

And while Google Wave may have not survived, it’s good to see that the technology, which promotes real-time collaboration, is still around. If Google Shared Spaces can take off, that could probably be considered a notch in the “win” column for Google, even if it took a bit longer to achieve. As for a date regarding a public opening, Google didn’t say. So it looks like we’ll have to wait a bit longer before we can all experience what Shared Spaces has to offer.

[via Mashable]

That includes “significant improvements to the wave panel, visual enhancements to the login pages, gadgets hooked up and working, improved development set-up and documentation, and a draft HTTP transport for wave federation” according to Google Wave software engineer Alex North. There’s a considerable amount of documentation and video about the project here, so if you’ve been pining for Wave since its untimely demise, head on over to get going.

Wave in a Box architecture:

“Wave in a Box (WIAB) is the name of the main product at the moment, which is a server that hosts and federates waves, supports extensive APIs, and provides a rich web client. This project also includes an implementation of the Wave Federation protocol, to enable federated collaboration systems (such as multiple interoperable Wave In a Box instances).” Proposal

Apache Wave would be more like existing mail server implementations, with a web-based client interface on top of underlying servers that actually host the Waves themselves. Despite Google’s decision to shift away official development, some engineers at the company are still working on the project; there are apparently also various companies and individuals either submitting code or expressing interest in the project as a standalone venture.

“We anticipate early future committers coming from places like Novell, SAP, companies related to the US Navy’s usage of wave, startups in the wave ecosystem, and many independent individuals” the project submission suggests. More information here.

[via Slashdot]

Meanwhile Facebook’s relatively compact team – around 2,000 in comparison to Google’s 25,000 – was also a key drive for Rasmussen.  ”The energy there is just amazing, whereas it can be very challenging to be working in a company the size of Google” he said, “I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4, or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.”

Rasmussen will join several other ex-Google employees now working at Facebook, including Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor and platform manager Carl Sjogreen.

[via SMH]

First, Google still plans to utilize the technology they have built with Google Wave. In essence, they may be abandoning what we know as Wave right now, but they won’t give up on the key components that make it work. Indeed, they plan on utilizing those resources in other Google projects, but obviously they aren’t telling anyone what those may be. Google goes on to say that Wave has taught them a lot, and that they will improve from those lessons.

Wave was a breakthrough because it offered real-time “live” typing, the ability to drag-and-drop files right into a Wave conversation, and watch what changes you made in a particular Wave, all from within your Browser. While Google would have wanted you to use Wave in their Chrome browser specifically, it worked in all of them, and it did so in such a way that many people got addicted to it. However, Google admits that it didn’t take off like they would have liked, and therefore it’s over and done with, at least in its current iteration. We’re looking forward to seeing what they do next with the technology.

[via Google Blog]

Video demo after the cut

Google has also announced that they’ll be opening up more access to the Wave source code, so developers will be able to integrate the discussion service with their own projects and tailor it to suit.

Since Wave first launched, Google has added in email notifications of conversation updates, made it easier to track unread messages and remove accidentally added participants, and introduced an extensions gallery.  You can sign up here.

Video after the jump

Here’s the video demo.

Essentially, Wave is what email would look like if it were designed today, according to Google anyway. You’ll see all of your contacts in the “Navigation” side bar, which is like your buddy list. You can select to communicate with any person, online or off, and send them a message. If they’re not online, you can just click below their message and reply as in GMail, except there’s no additional “New Message” window to pop up or anything. You can even respond to a particular section of a message someone sent you by clicking below that portion and typing. If your friends are online, you can start typing to them, and they will see your words appear in real-time, as you type them. If you don’t like that idea, you can enter into “Draft” mode and hide what you type until you’re finished with it. This would enhance the communication between the two of you, and is intended to help keep the flow of the conversation.

There are a boat-load more features that Wave offers, including wiki-like collaboration on projects between friends or co-workers. If someone wants to jump in on an ongoing communication, they can see how the conversation flowed by using the Playback feature which will show them all the changes that were made to the message over time. Say you want to add a friend into Wave. You can go click and drag their picture into Wave, and you’re done. Even dragging photos into Wave to share them with friends is all drag-and-drop because of Gears. You can host Wave on your blog, and allow visitors to communicate with you directly on your blog through wave. The largest draw to Wave is the collaboration functionality that it offers. It can allow friends and co-workers to collaborate on projects, communicate together, send out meeting invites and track who is attending.

Google designed Wave to be customizable by developers. Developers can use Wave and implement it into their projects, workplaces, and applications for better communication and collaboration. This will be a huge benefit, since all workplace environments are different and have different aims. Wave is a confusing service at first, and it’s something you have to see in action to fully understand, and even then, the scope of the project can go way beyond your own imagination. Wave is relying on HTML5, which was heavily discussed during yesterday’s keynote. This ties it in all quite nicely. There are tons more features, and even iPhone and Android clients coming once the Wave service is launched later this year. If you want in on the testing, sign up over at wave.google.com

UPDATE: Google posted on their site about the new service. The story behind the concept is insanely interesting, and so simple, it’s no wonder why Google is the best. The idea is to remove the barriers between the two most popular forms of communication: IM and email, both of which were designed decades ago to mimic phone calls and snail mail respectively. By combining the two services, Google created Wave. Wave will be completely open source for developers to use and implement to their liking. You can read up more on the Google Blog.