I recently was able to snag an invite to Google Wave.  The following points won’t make some sense without a basic understanding of how Wave works.  The best way I can think of to describe Google Wave is a cross between e-mail and Wikis.  Users join “waves” that contain a variety of content, and then can contribute or edit wave however they see fit.  My words really don’t do the platform justice, so you might want to read a more in-depth overview of Google Wave.  Here’s what I think:

Wave is still trying to find its niche.  Users are experimenting heavily on how to best utilize Wave.  Right now, this takes the form of trying to adapt Wave to resemble older platforms.  In some cases this works, and in other it fails.  For example, Wave does a great job of being a small scale Wiki, organizing relevant information for a group of people.  However, on the other end of the spectrum, I don’t think Wave in its current form will replace message boards, due its inherent lack of structure.  It’s hard to follow the Forum->Thread->Messages progression on a large scale with Wave.

However, I think Google Wave’s biggest potential is as a tool for project based collaboration or the “Hollywood work model”.  I can see a company using Wave to pull together employees across different departments to work on a single project.  Workers would be able to organize their projects in their inbox, and monitor updates made by co-workers.

Wave could also be a big hit with freelance workers.  Imagine a graphic designer and web coder trying to put together a website.  Rather than zip files and e-mail back and forth, the two could work in real time on Wave.  The designer would post artwork to a Wave, the coder taking it and inserting it into the website framework.  The coder then shows the designer how the art has affected the site’s overall feel, and they can revise from there.  It not only speeds up the entire process, it also tracks all revisions made.

There’s a lot of potential for Google Wave in the future.  I think, like Twitter, it’ll take some time before Wave settles in.  And even then, it has a lot of room to change and grow.  If Google promotes Wave in the right way, it could be the next big thing.