I got this in my Google Wave mailbox today:

œInvite others to Google Wave

Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.  Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.

Happy waving!

So what is Google Wave?

Currently an exclusive invite-only service, Google wave is a whole new way of communicating online!

œGoogle Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless — in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is a conversation with multiple participants — participants are people added to a wave to discuss and collaborate on its content. Participants can reply any time and anywhere within a wave, and they can edit content and add more participants as a wave develops. It’s also possible to rewind waves with the playback functionality, to see what happened, and when.

via Google Wave Support

Here’s a video do you get a better idea of this cool service:

Anyhow, Google Wave is currently under development, and they’ve released a limited number of private invites to their fully usable preview edition.

Want a free super exclusive private invite to Google Wave?  (CLOSED)

Just drop a comment on what your favorite Google Wave feature is, and how you would use it, and I’ll pick 10 lucky winners by the end of this week!

Update: here are our 10 lucky winners, and why they want to use Google Wave!:

1. Rebecca

I am a math coach at an elementary school, and I am really intrigued by the real-time communication tool, especially with the translator robot. I spend a lot of time discussing solution strategies with my students. Instead of watching me solve a problem, they collaborate with each other about how to solve problems. This practice helps them build real-life problem solving skills. There is a lot of talk in education today (especially in math) about comparisons between US students and students from other countries. I would love to be able to bring my students into this conversation by allowing them to share their solution strategies with students from other countries! I think this would be a powerful use of the technology, and one that would really drive home an important social concept to my math students.

2. byflipper

Due to multinational projects I am leading, i often need to communicate with people speaking other languages than my own. So, that instantly translating service of Wave amazed me with one word! I’d be pleased to be invited and be a part of this revolution!

3. cho

i really love the fact that it will enable better communication within members of group projects. I have been apart of multiple group assignments where there was a mess of the emails passed back and forth whilst certain members missed out on important information altogether. That’s why I’m really excited about Google wave since it changes the way we collectively communicate and recieve information ( and real-time adds a factor of cool) and that was my mini essay

4. Jessie

I’m a student journalist, and my college newspaper is working on developing its online presence. As a leader within the newspaper, I would like to be able to collaborate with other students at my paper, along with other journalists, to discuss the future of journalism and how the web plays into it. However, none of the people using Wave at my newspaper received any invitations, so I can’t join their conversation. :( It would be beneficial to me and our newspaper if I could join in the discussion!

5. Ron

As a pastor, I’m always sending emails, documents and spreadsheets to others for worship planning. With input from several staff people, our Admin. Assistant cobbles together the Sunday worship bulletin. I think Wave will make our lives easier and our communication better.

6. Claes

I want to get a head start on using Wave to help edit stories. I would post a document and have all the people who need to comment it or edit it to do it without having to send different versions back and forth in an average of 10 emails for one story! It is very frustrating and confusing and wastes lots of time.

7. Daniel Coopsammy

I would like a chance to start using Google wave because i have a lot of team project for college that require team members to share information, a lot of the times requiring us to edit the same document multiply times. Google wave seems like a perfect fit in terms of giving us the ability to share information real time and without the need of sending 30 different emails for the same project.

8. Mrs Banka

As a math teacher, I think Google Wave could revolutionize group projects by lowering the classroom walls so that students can converse with students all over the world. The real-time display of typing will only be pertinent for those students in relatively close time zones, but think about a group of students set up to solve a common, real-life problem. I’d also like to see how the Wave would boost the digital PLN. I just graduated in May with my B.S. in Math Ed and am currently in graduate school for Curriculum and Instruction but I can already tell, I want to be a change agent in the schools. And what better way than to already be armed with the technology experience to incorporate in my classroom. I want to make math real, meaningful and understandable and I think group projects with students outside of the classroom would be phenomenal!

9. John Lombaerde

I think that education and training is one of the greatest applications for Google Wave. I deal with complex technology subjects on a regular basis, and I always try to use layman’s terms in my explanation, but sometimes the written or spoken word is just not enough. The Multimedia drag and drop capabilities of Google Wave seem to have great potential, as well as the playback feature. These would both be very valuable in a technology training session. The asset Google Wave could bring to online education is very significant, and one for which I would have an immediate use

10. Patrick

I’m currently getting my masters in multimedia and am looking at using Google Wave heavily within my graduate project. I plan on incorporating it into an online educational model aimed towards kids with learning disabilities. It is such a cool and useful tool.

For all those who didn’t win, thanks for participating – and if I do get another bunch of invites, I’ll post them up online again!