Google Wave, or was it a small splash

I have used Google Wave for a few months now, and the all the hype that Google managed to create around their real-tile collaboration tool was more of a little splash for me than a big crashing Wave.

Ok it is still in development phase but that did stop the thousands of people getting on board to ride the Google Wave. Now this is not the first time that Google have spat out a not quite complete package and yet again it would seem that the PR campaign which essentially this was, again has actually paid off. They had a lot of press coverage on Google Wave and a lot of buzz was generated within the industry. The question I want to pose is this:

Is Google Wave actually any good?

From what I can tell this is just a great way of getting everyone to signup for a Gmail account, those of us that do not have one of course will be unable to access Google Wave.

The idea of a real-time collaboration tool actually appeals to me however as yet I think the masses are probably not ready to have all their eggs in one big Google basket.

I am sure with development Google will once again be onto a winner with this though, whether it serves as conduit for the even more advertisement remains to be seen. Or whether it is a tool to try and get masses to sign up for Gmail and other Google services who knows?

My guess would see Google Wave change a lot over 2010 and maybe something amazing will be born, but until then it isn’t much fun and with 30 invites still needing to be sent to people who quiet frankly could not care about Google Wave, then something really special needs to happen with it.