Google Wave is all the rage among the digerati:  If you don't have a Google Wave invite, you are a nobody in the industry.  (The super-elite even have more than one account!)  LifeHacker is already running tips and tricks even though nobody can access it.  My opinion on Google Wave?  Don't have it, don't need it, don't want it.

I applaud Google's effort to find a new email paradigm, but I think they're going in a weird direction.  From what I understand, Wave is basically a real-time document collaboration tool with an open architecture so developers can write their own extensions.  I personally don't get how creating a document will replace email - I hardly ever want to take an email and turn it into a document.

Honestly I think it's that second part -- the open architecture -- that is generating all the buzz.  It's what businesses tend to do when they know their product has no intrinsic value:  They open it up so that "the developer community" will create the value and demand for them.  There are gajillions of examples of this:  Photoshop is popular because developers can write plugins.  Firefox is popular because developers can write extensions.  Twitter is popular because developers can hook into the API.  The iPhone is popular because developers can write apps.  Wave will be popular because developers can write their own gadgets (or whatever they're called).

Having been there, I find developing open architectures is a dual-edged sword.  It's nice when other developers do your work for you (for free!), but it's a pain to maintain a system that's open enough for other people to write plugins.  It's essentially like writing an operating system.  You spend all your time working on the framework and no time on the actual features of your software.  I used to swear I wouldn't write any more open systems, but unfortunately, the digerati demand it, and successful products depend on it.

But I digress.  Back to Wave.  I haven't seen it and I don't have an invite; I've only heard people talking about it (endlessly) on tech podcasts.  It sounds to me like there are going to be some usability issues.  For example, I certainly won't be using it unless there's a way to turn off the "other people watch you type letter-by-letter" feature.  It was annoying when ICQ did it in 1997 and I have no doubt that it's still annoying now.  The "wow, that's cool" factor wears off pretty quick when you realize that, in practice, you end up staring at people backspacing a hundred times until they figure out what they're trying to say, which is a huge timesink.  Average users certainly won't like it because they'll feel like they're "on the spot" -- like the conversation has turned into a performance of some sort.

I just don’t get it, and unlike the digerati, I don’t feel the need to jam it into my life just because it’s a Google product.