Diffusion of an Online Collaboration Tool: The Case of Google Wave Adoption Failure

Abstract

The research set to understand reasons for the failure of Google Wave adoption. Based on the Diffusion of Innovation theory, this research employed the content analysis method to analyze secondary data from online forums that discussed the failure of Google Wave. Additionally, primary data were collected from early adopters who had discontinued using Google Wave. The research adds to the literature on adoption of online collaboration tools. It discusses factors accounting for Google Wave failure. Complexity and a lack of relative advantage are found as most-frequently-cited reasons for the failure. The invite-only policy is also cited as one of the main reasons. For academics, this paper highlights the importance of group decision-making as individual adopters with no one to use a tool with will eventually result in rejection of the tool. For collaboration tool developers, the research highlights the conflict between being an all-in-one tool and keeping the tool simple.