In social media, we are trained to be creative and put both innovation and social engagements online at the top of the priority heap. Google, among many other companies, is in the forefront of this curve with one service cropping up after another. However, with all their forward-facing attitude and love for it, Google Wave, one of their recently touted “innovative” products, got the axe last week.

If anything, Wave’s demise proved that jumping in and unveiling new technologies on the social Web is still a gamble, even for a well-known ginormous brand.  And we, as online marketers, can learn a lot from its plight—from its blitzkrieg-esque fame (or infamy) to its demise.

Google Wave’s application in daily communication was baffling to many everyday users.

Many argued that though Wave’s intention to unify online communication was indeed admirable; it felt nothing more than a Google-branded interface that aggregated the capabilities of already existing services online. As a result, there are others who were confused as to its actual use and its adoption ultimately sank. What’s more, its supposed unique features—the real-time media-sharing and collaboration aspects—weren’t even engaging enough to get people to jump onboard.

These are characteristics that Google didn’t address and we, as online marketers, should learn from. Naturally, there will be competitors in the market who have the offerings as you. And they’re out for blood. Your survival is pretty much determined on how your products, services and overall marketing strategy can set you apart from the flock to get yourself noticed amid the noise. This also works well when setting up brand development campaigns and whenever you’re casting new blog posts. Show them a modicum of mediocrity and you blur any distinction between you and everyone else online and all the more dead-easy for them to jump ship into a more popular brand.

Google’s Senior VP of Operations Urs Hölzle stated in his post on the Google Blog that the main reason why Wave got shoved into Google’s development cul-de-sac/graveyard was its lack of significant user adoption. This, among many other factors, prompted the company to realize its lack of viability in the online space.

This gives light to the importance of performance metrics and that it should be measured regularly to determine whether their marketing efforts are actually working and to keep focused on the direction of the campaign. These include resonance with their targeted audience, mentions and conversations revolving around your brand and the impressions you’ve been getting. As online marketers, measuring the performance is crucial so we can also polish our brands and scrap out strategies that are merely contributing to unnecessary noise on the social trails.

This is not the first time Google terminated a product; before Wave, the company bid adieu to Jaiku, Dodgeball and Google Notebook among others in the past and we may be seeing Orkut inching closer as it stands on its final vestiges of the social network pie. It’s enough to make a company cringe in one corner; but what we find admirable about Google is their transparency, admitting where their business decisions have gotten stale and calling it what it really is, a failure.

At this point, these may sound too Social Media 101 but let’s face it; many users out there are just focusing on the online engagements and link dissemination without testing the waters every now and then. And as Google mentioned that the original Wave will continue to innovate in many fields and that Wave live on through its tech DNA being spread across their other products.

Tags: Axe, google wave, Social Media