Only in the bubble of language fashion that is Hacker News, could the failure of Google Wave be attributed to their language choice.
Billions of successful projects run on Java.
Billions of successful projects run on Java.
I will give you billion dollars if you can prove that.
My personal guess (using my personal metrics) is that there are 10^3 to 10^4 successful Java projects and 10^9 failed ones.
Successful ones mean "You can succeed using this". The failed ones mean "This failed, could have been for a ton of reasons".