Since it’s founding in 1998, Google has brought us a super search engine, excellent email, and marvelous online maps; all for free.  This has many people wondering what they will do next.

The answer is Google Wave.

Google has completely rethought the way we look at Internet communication.   Email is like sending somebody a letter, Google Wave is like having a conversation.  You don’t just share information with people, you interact with them.

Google wave has not been formally released yet, however Google is slowly releasing what they call the Google Wave preview.  It is available on a mostly invite basis although you may sign up to be considered on Google’s site.

I have to say that it’s hard to tell how useful and cool Google Wave is of right now.  I recently received an invite and excitedly got on Google Wave for the first time a few weeks ago.

My first impression was very good, overall I am very impressed, however it lacks one thing.  There wasn’t anybody else on.  It automatically added the few people I had from my Gmail contacts who also had Google Wave accounts, a grand total of four — two friends from high school, someone I barely even know, and Your Brain On Tech’s own Brian Gotts.

I went ahead and added my cousin and girlfriend, and with my contact list up to an astronomical six people, it was far from spectacular.

What’s my point?  I don’t have anyone to talk to, so at this point it’s pretty impossible to have any insight on how cool/uncool Google Wave will be.  I’ve had one conversation on it, and it was pretty cool, but it only lasted about five minutes.

I have yet to use any of the dozen or so applications available for Google Wave — including games, maps and video chat — but Wave definitely has the potential to completely change the way we interact on the web.

Communication, Google, Wave