I was one of the random few that got a Google Wave invite the other day and of course jumped right in and starting playing around to see what it was and how it might fit into my life. The first thought I had was that it was more of a ripple then a wave. But, I also know that this is what BETA testing is about. Seeing beyond what is there now and what it could be. Mitch Joel wrote a great post about everyone writing it off to quickly.

As someone who prides himself on playing with new technology and thinking about the big picture always I wanted to make sure that I really gave it a fair shake before ripping it to shreds. To do this I started using this for a mini project that I'm working on with a friend who I also noticed was in Wave (Google instantly shows you which of your contacts are there in real time).

At the moment it is a mashed up glorified IM, e-mail, collaboration tool. I can see them taking this and allowing organizations to install it locally and integrate directly into Google Apps to be an in house collaboration tool to take on Sharepoint and all the others. It isn't quite ready to replace them or be a replacement for Basecamp, but it could certainly go in that direction quickly. There is a lot of potential there.

This video is the most straight forward explanation I've seen for what it is at the moment. But, trust me that it is going to be more as it begins to integrate with the full suite of other Google tools and becomes available on phones and beyond the browser.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo[/youtube]

This may not be a tsunami of "oh shit this is cool!" but riding waves can be fun. Grab a surfboard and try it out for a while before you give up on it.