The fundamental problem with wave wasn't that it used one technology instead of another or had one feature instead of another or anything so mundane. The problem with wave was that it solved all of the easy problems with communication. Granted, it seems to have done a good job of that, and that alone created something different that maybe was worthwhile in an abstract sense but wasn't worth switching to and wasn't worth adopting in addition to everything else.

The problems we face with communication today are not ones of distribution, speed, or longevity. Currently there are some very popular forms of communication which have fundamental issues with one or many of those aspects, but ultimately those are problems which are amenable to very direct and relatively inexpensive solutions.

The real problems we face are ones of organization, discovery, workflow, meaningful semantics, and overwhelmingly managing information overload. I don't believe that Wave significantly addressed any of those issues. But only by addressing those issues can you create the sort of value for users that will drive significant adoption of your tools.