What the heck does Google Wave do, and why do I want it so bad

Google wave is brilliant marketing, but what the hell does it do? A friend recently posted on Facebook that he had a Google Wave invite, and put out a call to see if anybody wanted one. I almost broke a finger typing in, "Heck yes." Alas, when I opened up it up on Friday I was like a kid on Christmas morning who opened the package and found out they had gotten a dictionary, in latin.

I simply can't figure out how to get started, and I can't figure out if I should be disappointed that I was tricked into wanting this thing and now it doesn?t do all of the wonderful things I thought it would or if I should spend the time figuring it out. I had images of managing my posts, my dormant blogs, and my digital persona all through Wave, but I don?t see how to do any of that. Beyond that, I'm reticent to send out the five invitations that I have, because I don?t want to admit I'm not sure what my friends should do with it.

A few simple lessons are probably worth it though. One, the marketing is brilliant. Creating scarcity and then having people salivating for the product is genius. The second lesson is that Google has such great brand feeling, I may just start a wave. My idea over the weekend was to start a wave about what the best uses for wave actually are. My only reticence in doing that is that I know it would benefit Google as much, or more than me - which again if I was Google - is brilliant.