Image by marketingfacts via FlickrIf you're one of the lucky ones to have gotten an invite to google wave, you probably know that what you're using is something revolutionary. Okay, I admit I had my doubts over Wave. For starters it came from Google (a company I HATE with a passion). Second its in beta (oh well cant complain about that really. Orkut, Google's social networking cum Facebook copying wing has been in beta since I was a kid! :P). And third, I had the same old privacy concerns Google apps are renowned for gifting its users.Anyway, all concerns aside, I had to have a go at it! (After all everyone's talking about Wave these days!) And for once, I was pleasantly surprised. Google wave is really a novel concept. You communicate with your 'friends' (who also must have received a Google Wave invite) via 'waves' which are sort of notes/ideas. The best part of it is, you can chat here in 'real-time' and I mean 'real-time'! You can see the other person type the words as the chat goes on! Should suffice to say that this is bloody brilliant! I dont think there's anything like this anywhere on the web, and I firmly believe this is what net chats in the future will look like.
However, apart from the brilliance comes the reality of it all. At the moment Google Wave isnt for everyone. You can only log in if you are invited by Google or if you've been sent an invite (which are pretty hard to come by! These invites were selling for 70 bucks each on ebay the last time I checked! And thats $$$!). As a result you wont find many users to 'wave' with. Now that could basically spoil your experience. Fortunately I have found some buddies to chat with on wave! But still it isnt as exciting as facebook or twitter simply coz I cant see any of my friends here! :( Also it can be pretty buggy at times, I was repeatedly asked to refresh my Google Wave page for apparently no reason whatsoever. In other words its more of concept right now than a real web application.
But I firmly believe Google Wave is here to stay. The concept is likely to be replicated by many other social networking sites.
If you have received an invite, dont waste it, give Wave a try! As they say...RIDE THE WAVE!
