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Google Wave account activated - first impressions

After about nine months of waiting, Google finally sent me an invite to check out Google Wave. First impressions? Well, it's fairly lonely in there. With most people still on the outside looking in, I've been dumped into the Wave world with no contacts and therefore no way to really test the interface until the people I invite sign up. Still, it seems Google has created a very interesting proposition for the way we may communicate and collaborate in the future. There is no doubt a long way to go, and many key features are lacking (like the ability to auto-embed a picture by simply posting a link to the image), but Google is certainly on to something, and they may just have enough influence to move business and younger people through the adoption curve. I'm not sure it will succeed at replacing chat and email (at least in the short term), since those forms of communication are so deeply engrained in our internet culture, but I'm very excited to see how Wave will improve the collaboration process in business and personal life, particularly among the who's-up-for-beers-and-here-are-the-directions-to-the-pub crowd. One word of warning though: Wave will allow others to see what you are typing in real time, even before you have the chance to edit it, so think twice about what you are about to write before writing it, and most of all don't drink and Wave! For those of you who don't yet know Wave, here are a couple quick videos on it. The first is a great short intro, while the second is done by the team at Google and goes into a bit more detail (including actual screen shots which the first one lacks)