Google Wave

I was lucky enough to get a Google Wave invite from my Dad a few weeks ago. If you haven't used Google Wave yet or even heard of it it's basically a new approach to communication and collaboration. You can read a little more about it here.

So far, I've mostly used it for short conversations with people that could more easily have taken place via email or facebook, but its a new toy so I want to play with it. I have used it a couple of times as a collaboration tool (very minimally so) and again, the type of collaboration may have just as easily been done on email. I think it will become more useful when utilized for larger, web-based collaborative efforts with multiple people. I think right now it is a little difficult to fully utilize it because not a lot of people are using it. Of course, I should also mention that its not even in beta yet, as it is still in "preview" mode. (I'm wondering if that is kind of like alpha...)

I did catch a glimpse of their maintenance page though today, which you can see here. It is a pretty cool maintenance landing page, with the text saying "Surf's out, dude. Google Wave is down for maintenance. Time to chillax."



If you have used Google Wave already, what is your opinion? What have you used it for?