pretty much like gmail

they could send out a new batch of invites to stress-test the thing before they go live

This seems really interesting. Probably have to join up and shit now.

Get invited or some shit.

I watched nearly half of it and it sounds really interesting. This also gave me motivation to start program more myself and I will also try "Google Web Toolkit".
If it will replace email: Hard to say if it is really going to replace email. If it is going to replace it, it is going to take time for people to start using it and understanding that it is actually better than the old email system. Also, other companies will surely try to beat their attempt to take over the email system.
Googles "goal" if they have any might be the best in everything in the electronic topic. They first succeeded to make the best search engine over the Internet. Their search engine are "best" in many different ways. Most people are using it. They are using the best techniques for finding new websites and add the description to them etc. I'm sure most people would agree to that.
They have released satellite pictures from all over the world (Google Earth) and are the biggest and the only ones doing that too? Now they have started to make mobiles (android) and they have a good chance to be the best mobiles.
So actually, I think they will succeed replacing email with "Wave".

Thats why they are making it open source. They WANT other companies to adopt the system, but put their own spin on it.

Damn, I'm still waiting for my invite.
So if anyone has one spare...

BTW, Deady, update your achievements.

deady summarize this plz its too long but intresting

Oh? They have beta invites for this now? :PP
If someone wants to send me one, I would love you forever.

The idea of the instantaneous messaging with letter by letter updates is very interesting.

Pretty pimp :o

I think it would be good for keeping in touch

me and gorman was playing wih this awhile back

three cool things about it

REAL TIME CONVO: you can see people replying and editing waves in real time as they are typing

GOOGLEDOCS INTEGRATION: same deal with google docs, You can edit google docs like spreadsheets in realtime (we are testing this at work, pretty nifty)

WIDGET SHARING: working on this now. you can integrate other social networking stuff with wave. We already tried interfacing with twitter and facebook, so i can tweet while i wave (which is whistling goodbye i think)