It's OK. If you blinked you would have missed the product's lifespan following the May 2009 launch that generated lofty adjectives such as “spectacular.” A common theme was that the product was going “revolutionize email” and perhaps the Internet as a whole. As Google co-founder Sergey Brin put it, Google Wave would “set a new benchmark for interactivity.” But a little over a year later, it was killed when Google announced they were pulling support from the product, and Wave joined the ranks of HamsterDance and JenniCam.

Fortunately by the time they pulled the plug, Google had “social” all figured out: Google Buzz had already launched in February 2010, with Mr. Brin stating that Buzz would “help bridge the gap between work and leisure” by leveraging the contacts already created in Gmail (I'm sure that quote concerned employers who already had enough trouble with employees bridging this gap while on the clock). Put another way, Google was re-entering “social” by assuming that they had a preexisting member base comprised of Gmail users. Add water, mix, and instant Facebook! Google's blog stated, “You don't have to pick out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works!”

Much of the initial press focused on how to turn Buzz off due to privacy violations, but it didn't matter for long. On October 14, 2011 Google drove a stake into Buzz as well. For the curious, Wave lived for fourteen months while Buzz made it to the ripe age of eighteen.

Fortunately, this time Google really did have it figured out. Before Buzz got buried, Google+ had already launched five months earlier. One Google senior vice-president stated in Google's blog: “We believe online sharing is broken. We think connecting with other people is a basic human need, but our online tools are rigid. Real life sharing is nuanced and rich. It has been hard to get that into software."

Of course, Google + was the solution that the Internet was looking for, and it was quickly touted to be a potential Facebook-killer by the same web pundits who were still blushing from the misty-eyed accolades they had heaped upon the altars of Wave and Buzz. This product was/is going to be just what “social” was missing. Right?

Hard to say. Google claimed 250 million users this summer, but initial public adoption was slow, largely due to Facebook's already enormous footprint when G+ launched. While the number of G+ users is clearly increasing, at the beginning of 2012 Comscore data indicated that the per-user average time spent on G+ was just over three minutes – compared with over seven hours on Facebook. That being said, Google has taken a different approach with Plus: rather than launching a free-standing product or marrying one to just email, Google is weaving Google+ into many facets of their business, even going so far as making acquisitions such as Meebo specifically to support the social platform. Because of this, Google+ is unlikely to ever “go away” as its predecessors did, and Google seems intent on proving that they are very serious about social – one way or another.

Is it working? Could be. Last week the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) published a report surveying roughly 70K online users their satisfaction regarding online businesses. Whereas Facebook fell to last place and suffered the largest decline of any social media company, Google+ was far ahead with a score of 78 compared to Facebook's 61. You can bet that Facebook's myriad privacy and advertising concerns helped Google while damaging their own rating. Put another way, many users gave a “+1” to Google+ while handing Facebook a pronounced “Dislike!”