Are These the Lessons Learned by the Demise of Google Wave?

What do we learn from Google's decision to kill the Wave?

• Perhaps next time we will curb our enthusiasm about the teaching and learning possibilities of a new Web 2.0 tool.

• The LMS is proving difficult to dislodge as the core technology for teaching (and hopefully learning) on campus.

• We pay for our learning technology tools one way or another. We pay in licenses or we pay by bringing on risk. Free Web 2.0 tools can disappear.

• The real opportunity for Google in higher education is to offer a robust, cloud based LMS. Moodle seems custom made to turn into gMoodle. What if Google had invested all the dollars spent on Wave on an LMS?

• Is it possible that the death of Wave is a sign that Google's ability to innovate, or at least innovate in a manner that is relevant to academic technology, is diminishing?

• Was our excitement about Google Wave an indication that in academic technology we are still putting the "technology" cart before the "learning" horse?

• Has any product or service ever experienced a hype-to-implementation ratio to the degree of Google Wave? Everyone talked about Wave, but I don't know anyone who actually used Wave for core teaching and learning tasks.

• Is Google asking us what we really need? I'm all for innovations that we would not have asked for, but on campus we have lots of needs and desires that Google could help us with if we could only get a seat at their table.

What do you think we should all learn from the short but fast life of Google Wave?