Google Wave, introduced by Google just last year, ended its run as Google admitted in a blog post that the product had never caught on widely with the public.

Wave, which attempted to provide an integrated platform for project collaboration and communication, gave users real-time media sharing capability and con

text-based spell-check, among other features.

Another feature of the product, code access that allowed third-party gadget developers to expand on Wave's offerings, actually led reviewers to speculate about the abilities of the product, since the full code was not offered for early review. Google claimed that most of it was open source and thus already available to developers.

Urs Hölzle, Google's senior vice president of operations and a Google fellow, wrote in a blog post that "Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science... We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web," Hölzle said.

According to Hölzle, Google will maintain the Wave site through the end of 2010 and use the technology in future Google products.