Google has rarely made missteps in its 11 years. Sure, the search giant has shuttered some business plans over the years, but often those failures were either too grandiose and fell outside the company’s core strengths, or too simple and rudimentary to ever grasp scale.

Google Wave doesn’t fall into either of those categories per se. It’s grand, yes, but it’s also a complex new service that capitalizes squarely on Google’s depth of expertise. Since its beginning, Google has been on an unrelenting quest for thinking outside the box and introducing new products and user experiences to consumers that they didn’t even know they needed. Success can be measured by how often these products become entrenched in people’s daily lives.

Brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen are the minds behind Google’s latest and greatest feat: Google Wave. Originally named “Walkabout” by the Danish-Australian brother duo, a five-person “startup” team sought to create a new communications model that built on what they considered the most spectacular success in digital communications thus far. Read the full story