Note: This post was written by Brian K. McDaniel (@BKmacdaddy on Twitter). Don’t forget to check out his amazing web designs at: bkmacdaddy.com, and follow him on Twitter.

In case you’ve been living under a rock & haven’t heard, 100,000 invitations to try out the much-hyped Google Wave were sent out last week. Everyone that received an invitation was also given 8 more invitations that they could send out to whoever they deemed worthy.

The story…

Social media & technology geeks (like me) drooled with anticipation, & when it became obvious that I was not going to be a recipient of the initial ‘wave’ of invites (pun intended) I began using Twitter to try to cajole someone into sending me one of their 2^nd generation invitations with promises of lifelong friendship & dedication. Sure enough, thanks to the power of Twitter, I received offers from a few of my followers who were willing to send me a golden ticket, & my joy knew no bounds. My young friend @storiesofmac assured me he signed me up to receive one of his coveted invites, & the waiting began. Finally, almost a week later, I opened my Gmail inbox to the most wonderful automated email I’ve received to date. I signed up & created my Wave account, then began looking for contacts to add.

But alas, the first day I was only able to connect with two, & at separate times. So in essence, my first impression of Wave was that it was pretty much another version of instant messaging. I had a couple brief conversations, marveling at the real-time vision of someone else’s letters appearing as they typed, & laughing at their typos & edits (& mine). My joy was diluted, although I could see the obvious potential.

Google Wave - first impression: IM service

[read full article >>]