Google has officially shut down Google Wave, a real-time service for sharing docs, sending emails and messages with friends and relatives. Google announced about the shutdown in November 2011, stating that – from January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. As a part of the shutdown, all Waves will be deleted automatically.

Earlier today, Google sent out an email to all Google Wave users, stating that the product has been put in read-only mode and would shut down on April 30, 2012. However, did you notice anything strange in the email? If not, go check that email again. Google has misspelled the name of its own product as “Google Wage” instead of “Google Wave”. Well, looks like the Google Wave team is under high distress!

Google Wave was introduced as a “killer app” for online collaboration for work groups and social media. It never lived up to the expectations and now it’s finally being read it’s final rites, with a burial to follow in 2012.

Google has launched Google+, a new social networking service. Google has launched a new social networking service called Google Plus or Google Circles and is looking to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Google has launched Shared Spaces, it definitely looks like a stripped down version of Google’s failed futuristic product, Google Wave.

Google Groups has been revamped and now has a refreshed user interface. The new Groups UI is similar to what Google Wave had.

Google Wave being taken over by Apache Software Foundation. Google Wave will be known as Apache Wave or Wave in a Box (WIAB).

WizeHive, a Google Wave competitor, is giving away free accounts worth $250,000.

Google has decided to kill Google Wave due to lack of user interest and poor adoption rate.

Google Wave now has an extensions gallery where you can find links to install various extensions.

Google Wave Desktop notifier is a Freeware and Open source software which will notify you about new waves in your Google Wave account in the system tray on your desktop.

Tips to access Google Wave in Thunderbird 3. This trick makes use of the new tab feature in Thunderbird 3, to open the Google Wave website within Thunderbird.

Google acquires AppJet Inc the creators of EtherPad a real-time collaborative solution for text and documents to enhance Google Wave. EtherPad is one of the best real-time services to edit text and documents in real-time.

Get free Google Wave invites from Techie Buzz. This will be an unending resource for Google Wave invites.

An interesting features of Google Wave is the ability to use Extensions and Gadgets to add new features to it. There are tons of extensions and gadgets which allow you to play games, access twitter and more.