Despite being one of the largest tech companies in the world, it appears that even the mighty fall - and in the case of Google, today sees the firm officially close down its social networking service, Google Wave.

Opened in great anticipation back on 27th May 2009, a lot was riding on Google's exciting new product - and with users queuing to request a look-in through its invite-only function, it looked set to be the biggest thing since social networking sliced bread.  However, the ripple effect it so desperately needed failed to make much of an impact, and became less of a wave and more of a drop in the ocean.

Even after making the service available to the public in 2010 couldn't help Google's cause, with the company announcing the closure of Google Wave, yet some still held out hope for the project, with many developers building on its open source foundations - which has been renamed Apache Wave (following Google's generous decision to give the product to the Apache Foundation).

But if you're one of the few users who wishes to retain their waves then you'll need to be quick and export them before Google Wave officially shuts down for good - and if you're a dev, then you can still help develop the Wave at Wave in a Box.

Source: The Verge