Is Google Wave a failure?

I hate to admit it, but after having toyed with Wave for a good month I come to the conclusion that it's not going to work. maybe in some professional settings but not not in daily life.

The expectations after the presentation early this year were sky high. A new Google tool that potentially could replace e-mail, social networking and... Yeah what not? I immediately subscribed for getting an invite and to my surprise I was one of the very few that received one in november. At first I was quite excited about the whole thing discovering step by step all it's new possibilities. I spent a few weeks learning and discovering it's full potential, which actually is quite impressive once you get your head around it. I also learned that setting up and maintaining a good wave needs a lot of attention and most efforts die quickly after a tumultuous start. Most waves I participated in were about Wave by the way.

And that raises the question for which specific situations and what specific groups Wave could be a good solution in daily life? Obvioulsy there are situations that could be apropriate for a wave. The planning of an event where a group of people is involved is an example where using Wave could be handy. But how often do these events occur in daily life? And if they occur: how many people will at that point be familiar with the use of Wave or willing to get an account and learn the complex structure and features?

I invited a couple of dozen persons to Wave. People in my own network whom I considered possible early adopters and after that a bunch that was begging for an invite on Facebook. Around 80% had a first look, dropped a line or two and then never came back, didn't respond anymore, gone. Around 15% was prepared to give it a try. They tried out a few gadgets, responded to each other for a week or so and then they were also gone. That leaves a mere 5% that were prepared to make an effort. And this was not a randomly picked group. These were people that specifically expressed their interest in getting an invite.

At the moment Google is apparently handing out  invites to all people who subscribe(d) for it. This is supposed to broaden the user base so users can start waving with the people of choice instead of being limited to the very few that were invited so far. Given the above numbers and my experiences so far I'm not very optimistic about it.