How to Ride Google's Wave

It combines instant messengers, blogs, and other communication outlets into one user interface. This application makes the Internet a hyper-personal productivity machine, interweaving all networks and applications into one hub.

In 2007 at the Seoul Digital Forum, Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt defined web 3.0 as customizable applications that piece together data and are distributed by social networks. Two years later, Australian brothers Jens and Lars Rasmussen, creators of Google Maps, give us their latest cloud application.

Australia, a country surrounded by water, where the development team is headquartered, must have been inspiration for the term wave. Where the Internet is an ocean of media, a wave becomes the filter. You and your friends surf these waves by joining in relevant conversation around articles of information.

Instead of emailing a photograph of your weekend trip, you can add it to a wave. Invite your friends to add commentary to the photograph. As each friend comes into the wave or conversation, they can add their own picture, video, or even an article about the location.

Developers have been on edge since the preview earlier this year. They've been inside Wave Sandbox developing tools that integrate with Google's API. This preview is still only open to developers.

While you wait, sign up for an invitation. You may be chosen to become an early adopter. Since you're more likely to wait, join me on a tour of the most anticipated social network release of the year.