…so people around you will begin now, to brag about having received their Google Wave invitation. The geekier-than-thou crowd will start to tell you why it’s “just like X” or that it’s “not really anything new…” or whatever they want to tell you to counteract the pain of admitting that they don’t have a login to the system yet.
It’s just like X, that’s true! It’s a veritable post-modern social networking tool. It combines the best of email, IM, web pages, blogs, wikis, and whatever you didn’t think of yet…into a new domain for expression.
Yes it’s chaotic, yes it’s underpopulated as an information space, and yes some of the parts don’t work completely yet. But I’m telling you that this will be the Twitter of next year. It won’t replace or supplant Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. Each of those has a purpose. This is the tool that will begin to solidify the trend for convergence.
All of those things will begin to come together among the waves! Get someone to invite you. If you’re a person who loves to be there first, this is for you.
Here's a place where my "vision" didn't pan out. Google has abandoned its commitment to Wave and perhaps for good reason. But I don't really think this is a good idea. I think this approach had potential, but it was going to take a couple of years before the thing panned out.
Wave was ahead of its time, and the measure should never have been user acceptance. The migration to this enhanced form of communication would have taken time.