Back in December 2009 we blogged about the release of Google wave. In January 2010 we predicted its demise. Earlier this month Google abandoned Wave, its much-hyped social collaboration tool.

Technically advanced and ambitious it may have been, but it was also near impossible to use. However, it’s demise now clears the path for Facebook – who many predict will be destined to build the Web’s next wave.

Wave was a testament to Google’s technical prowess: A real-time communication platform that combined elements of instant messaging, e-mail and collaboration software. The only problem was that with its many dials and switches, mastering Wave was the web equivalent of programming your VCR . Add to this that few users took the time to understand the product, and you can begin to understand how mainstream adoption proved to be unattainable.

Google’s failure to develop engaging social services is more disastrous than it might seem at first. Social networking is no longer just a time-waster for young people, it now reaches all demographics and encompasses personalized search, highly targeted advertising and the red-hot social gaming trend.

As Facebook builds a user base of more than 500 million people, it also stockpiles the personal information required to provide more comprehensive ad targeting – and a more personalized search engine – than Google could ever hope to engineer through algorithms alone.

It seems that I’m not the only one losing interest in Google Wave. As the graph below shows,  Google did a great job of building up hype around Google Wave towards the end of last year, however it seems that interest in the product is now plummeting.

The graph above shows Google search volume for the term “Google Wave” over the past 12 months.

The Hitwise graph below further confirms that usage of the service is falling; traffic to the Google Wave has fallen considerably over the past two months.

The above statistics don’t surprise me in the slightest; Google Wave is currently not sticky enough to hold attention, and the functionality isn’t great at the moment. No doubt Google have some tricks up their sleeves, and the product is still in beta, so I am by no means writing this service off, but for now, I’m going to stop waving.

What are your thoughts?

I was (supposedly) one of the lucky ones, who managed to nab a Google Wave invite fairly early on, and I have been signed up to the service for quite a while now.

So, has it revolutionised my life?

As tempted as I am to answer that question (you can probably take a guess from my tone what my answer would be), I am going to wait a couple of weeks before I tell you.

According to Google, “Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

Whilst I have been on Google Wave for a while, I haven’t really had anyone to wave to, and from Google’s description it sounds like it will be a lot more useful and fun when there are more people involved. So what I have done recently is invite the rest of Graphic Alliance to join me on the service, and we will be making waves next week. Therefore, I will report back at the end of next week, and give you my verdict.

And, if you want to get on to Google Wave and haven’t found an invite yet, just let us know. We have a few going spare!