If you haven't seen the press on this then here's my non-tech summary of next big thing... Google Wave... 

If you have an hour or so to spare Google have their own video. Likewise if your looking for a full on tech talk this isn't the place and you're probably already aware of the right blogs and forums etc to go look for that... this is about the ordinary man/woman understanding that Google Wave will change the world but you probably wont notice...

Oh and if you're looking for a Google Wave Invite - then you'll have to wait like the rest of us!

Dave's Wave - simplified:

Google Wave redefines e-communications - whilst many of us use emails and chat and maybe share documents and pictures and stuff - we do this now using a set of tools that have grown with us. These tools were conceived and built at a time when they did just about enough  but are inefficient now and certainly will become so and even cumbersome as we all grow in our e-maturity... think of how you might share a document you've written today - you'll write it in something like word and save it to your hard disc, then write an email and 'attach' it (actually you create another version of the document) then send it, the recipient has another copy of the document plus your conversation wrapper in the email and so these copies and bits and bytes start to spawn data each time the document is forwarded and replied to... Google Wave takes today's communication needs and designs a new tool using the best of todays technology. In the example above you'd create a document in wave, share it with your colleague, comment on it and edit it together. When you are ready to publish it and share it with others you're still looking at a single instance of that document and all the conversations around it if you want or strip them out and just show the finished article - it's like sitting round the same meeting room table and all writing on the same sheet of paper, rubbing out all the scruffy bits and sticking it on the notice board...

Now that's a huge simplification of whats going on but enough for a blog - if you want more watch the video and watch out for heaps of stuff that will emerge now that Google have invited 100'000 people to test before go live... trust me on this one - a big Wave is coming!