Google will start shuttering Google Wave at the end of January and turn it off completely April 30.

We often write in this blog about young tech companies and their innovation. But it is also important to remember that reliability is the biggest drawback for adopting the technologies developed by these young players. They may make you happy today but long-term viability is another matter.

Google may be powerful but it is still young and recently has shown signs that it will drop services that do not fit in its scope.

Google posted its news yesterday about Google Wave and in an email to subscribers today.  Google first announced it would close Google Wave last year.

Here is yesterday’s statement:

More than a year ago, we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. At the time, we committed to maintaining the site at least through to the end of 2010. Today, we are sharing the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.

If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.

For more details, please see our help center.

Yours sincerely,

The Wave Team

Google’s technology direction is shifting. And in that shift it appears the geekiest of Google’s efforts no longer have a place. Google Wave symbolizes that shift. It was tough to grok but it proved a hit with students and professionals in the health field and transportation.

We’ll miss Google Wave. Will you?