Google Gives Select Few a Taste of Wave

A hundred thousand lucky beta testers today got their hands on the much-hyped “Google Wave,” a communication app that Google’s calling “what email would look like if it were designed today.” Wave operates a little like a cross between email, instant messaging, and collaborative wikis, allowing users to edit conversations in real time, dropping in text and video, and even automatically publishing them to blogs, notes the Christian Science Monitor.

Google first gave the public a look at Wave in May, but it still “isn’t quite ready for primetime,” says the company blog. It’s still missing features, harbors bugs, and has a “quirky” user interface. So for now they’ve invited only developers who’ve helped on the open-source project, each of whom can in turn invite five compadres. (More Google stories.)