Thinking about it, i feel that Wave shutting down was a turning point for Google.
It was built on XMPP, and allowed anyone to spin up their own Wave server that could talk to any other such server (iirc).
At the time Google (and also Facebook) used XMPP as the backend for their messaging service, and was even working on a extension for video and voice communications (libjingle?).
But then all that was scuttled, and they moved the messaging onto the proprietary Hangout. I guess they could not figure out how to monetize a distributed system like XMPP and instead switched to putting everything in a silo.
Then again, Hangout was tied closely to G+, and G+ was the brainchild of a ex-MS exec that was described as a "cookie licker" (meaning he would try to tie whatever other projects he learned about into his own) after his departure from Google.
The turning point was when Larry Page became CEO. For years Google tried to beat Facebook with open specs/protocols like XMPP, but there was also Activity Streams and others (PubSubHubbub). None of those really took off.
I think Larry Page made the company more product focused and a few successes, like Hangouts, "validated" that it was the better approach than focusing on open protocols.
It was built on XMPP, and allowed anyone to spin up their own Wave server that could talk to any other such server (iirc).
At the time Google (and also Facebook) used XMPP as the backend for their messaging service, and was even working on a extension for video and voice communications (libjingle?).
But then all that was scuttled, and they moved the messaging onto the proprietary Hangout. I guess they could not figure out how to monetize a distributed system like XMPP and instead switched to putting everything in a silo.
Then again, Hangout was tied closely to G+, and G+ was the brainchild of a ex-MS exec that was described as a "cookie licker" (meaning he would try to tie whatever other projects he learned about into his own) after his departure from Google.