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.

What does the average person use Twitter for? I have been looking through the people I follow and the typical Tweet is about what they are currently doing, such as making a trip to work, as work, at home eating dinner, letting the world know they have just seen a good or bad movie at the cinema. Some people I know Tweet to the extreme and almost give me a 5 minute interval peak into their day which to me a little too much.

Recently I have been using it more as an instant messaging service allowing me to converse with friends about subjects and share links and items I have seen on the Internet. Other times I use Twitter to vent my spleen over something that is currently annoying me, as you will also see from my blogs this week mainly the media hype of the snow and the train service into London.

Some media outlets are now using Twitter to share with those who choose to follow them latest news and current affairs, some people are using Twitter now for a direct marketing tool as well. So what does 2010 have in store for us on the Twitter front, are we going to see the model change where you have to follow someone to be able to see their tweets. Surely there must be some value in Twitter themselves in marketing your identity to other companies, selling you as a follower to the highest bidder. We will start to see unsolicited tweets appearing on our screens direct marketing to us even though we are not following that person or company.

What about the companies as well that have boomed since Twitter took off, such as bit.ly, there link shortening service from what I gather is currently free for all. They must be doing something on a commercial level, maybe selling MI data, but how can they sustain the service that so many use without some commercial backing. Maybe 2010 we will see that we have to pay for a URL shortening service, maybe buy a pack of 100 URLS at a time for a small fee or a subscription based service paid on a monthly basis. Anyways these are just my ponderings and right now I am going to go Tweet that it is snowing again where I live.