It was useful for me when I passed a project on to someone else and he had a number of questions about it. We set up a quick Google wave conversation and he was able to ask questions I could respond to each of his points, then go back and edit those points and they all stay in the same place, not like in e-mail communication where you eventually lose the points that have been made if you don't keep recopying them into the next e-mail.

A major benefit is that if someone else joins him or if he passes it on to someone else, that person can be added to the conversation and can review (with a time-line control) how the whole conversation began and progressed up to the present time, and he can jump in on any point and add comments or ask questions.

So Google Wave maintains the integrity of a conversation whereas e-mail shreds it into bits and sends those bits into particular people's e-mail boxes.

I think Google Wave would be overkill to use all the time, perhaps, but I would definitely use it again to pass a project along which has an unknown number of people who may or may not be involved at a later time.

It's best been described as a solution looking for a problem :)

Just remember that it's a tool, you can use it for whatever you find it useful for. I think the primary focus for the design was for online collaboration. Say, for example, you're working on a software project with a team of people, either in the same office or spread out around the world. Google Wave is a place for the team to follow persistent conversations with rich content (images, video, etc.) embedded right into the conversations. People can edit each other's posts, insert comments anywhere in the thread, etc.

The main benefit, for me, is the "implied persistence." That is, any team member can sign off and walk away, then sign on from another location at another time and see everything that's happened in his/her absence.

You can look at following couple of videos:

• This is a nice illustration ^[1] describing main concepts behind Google Wave
• And this is Google Wave in Action ^[2], best demonstration ever of Wave. This will surely make you understand how does it work.

Gina Trapani has written " The Complete Guide to Google Wave ^[1]" wiki/e-book/book. That's the most comprehensive thing I've found.

It's best described as a collaboration tool, where threads of communication (called waves) can be actively edited by it's participants. It's like a notebook, or wiki, open for those who are invited into the waves. They're useful mostly for users who want to collaborate (in writing, editing, fact-checking stuff).

Personally I use it to keep track of a weekly lunch get-together group (since it has a voting gadget) where we post new waves for each week and write out the lunch menu for different restaurants in the area and the participants get to vote if they're in or not that week.