It's a testament to Google's buzz-generating power that the company managed on Thursday to whip up a storm of Internet chatter about a product that, technically, hasn't even launched yet.
The web giant began handing out 100,000 or so “invites” Thursday to its hugely ambitious, hugely anticipated new service, Google Wave. The invites allow users to take a look at Wave well before it launches publicly – probably next year.
Wave is best described as a real-time collaboration and communication tool. It lets users edit documents, chat and participate in all other manner of interactivity, all through a single piece of software. It is browser-based, meaning it can run on virtually any operating system. While Google incorporates several of its other services, such as Gmail, into Wave, the software's greatest strength will likely be the applications that third-party developers build for it.
Invites have become a common way for companies not only to pre-test their software before launching it to the masses, but also to build hype for a product that not everyone can get their hands on right away – the cyber-equivalent of a nightclub's VIP list. Google used invites with early versions of Gmail, and the public hype around Wave invites appears to be just as intense.
Within minutes of their release, invites began popping up on eBay for resale, fetching anywhere from $10 to more than $100, according to a scan of active bids Thursday. Wave became one of the most talked-about topics of the day on Twitter (alongside H1N1 flu and reality TV staple Jon Gosselin, among others), generating thousands of posts a minute, the vast majority from users looking to secure an invite.
Cyber-criminals also got in on the act, trying to lure users to malicious websites masquerading as Wave demo videos or sites offering invites.
Google's strategy with Wave appears to be similar to it's strategy for search, on-line advertising and a host of other markets: to place its product at the centre of an industry of communication and development. Wave is designed to harmonize all manner of communication into one platform, from e-mail to collaborative document-editing, from instant messaging to whatever applications third-party developers can dream up. If it succeeds, Wave may be to communication what Google itself is to search: a central hub of online activity.
But outside the 100,000 or so chosen ones, most people will have to wait a little longer to find out just what Wave is all about.
