Did you notice that Google Wave was put out of its misery? I didn’t. I guess that says something about Wave’s impact. By the end of last year my main association with Wave was that it was a way for people I was trying to avoid in other ways to recontact me. So what’s happening with Google Buzz? Is anyone using it? I never did.
Google has some great web apps. I especially love the public data explorer, which I keep meaning to utilize for social science related posts in the near future. And I use Google Docs as my “lite” quick & dirty option often. But nothing compares to what Google did to search, transforming the act of searching into “googling.” There are many large companies out there who have piles of cash (Microsoft?). Innovation which changes lives is obviously hard. Perhaps lighting just struck, and the next game-changer is not going to be from a known firm.