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PluggedIn: Struggling to ride Google Wave

google wave 2

What will Google do about China? Can Google’s Android defeat the iPhone? Important questions all, but I’m still curious about Google Wave, and wondering: do I want to use it?

Now undergoing testing with a limited number of users, the web-based email/word processing software was introduced last year, but it should begin open access later this year.

At its heart, Google Wave is a document living on the Internet, that can be edited by anyone collaboratively. What that means is a person can be working on one part of a document while his co-worker is changing another.

For the moment, this is a technology only available through Google and by invitation only. To be sure, my contact list has grown by leaps and bounds over the past six months — but no one is Waving with me nearly at all. And those who have don’t really know what to do with this new service. A lot of the early users — myself included — wax on at parties about tools for faster collaboration and flexible access through a computer or an Apple iPhone, Research in Motion Blackberry, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, or some other new device.

Here is a kid – I think – explaining how to use it:

When I first heard about the service, I was understandably excited. For anyone whose life is dominated by the ideas of text, documents and collaboration, Wave seemed like a breath of fresh air.

Wave: Who gets Google’s ticket to ride?

It may be the hottest ticket in cyberspace.

On Wednesday, Google will invite more than 100,000 people to begin using Wave, its new hybrid messaging-social networking-online collaboration tool.

The version that will be available on Wednesday is a preview version that Google acknowledges is still not ready for prime time.

But scarcity is a powerful marketing tool (remember the prized Gmail invitations a few years ago?)