from Music Alley...

Google Wave! It’s The Future! Convergent Communication 3.0! The bleeding zeitgesty edge of real-time innovation! But, er, what exactly IS it, and what potential does it have – if any – for artists, labels and the music industry?

I’ve been puzzling over this since Google Wave was first announced earlier this year. Now it’s launched in beta, with Google having sent out the first 100,000 invites for the service, allowing those people to invite others.

There isn’t much specific information online about Google Wave and music, apart from this fairly brief Hypebot post. However, there are quite a few articles talking about what Google Wave means for brands, which offer ideas that can be translated to the music industry.

With those as the basis (and properly referenced and linked to), I’ve tried to put together a brief Google Wave primer. Read on, and do please post a comment if you have views or ideas on the subject.

First off, what is Google Wave?

In a nutshell, it’s like email meets instant messaging meets social networking meets document editing meets online collaboration. Sort of. Or, to relate it specifically to Google products, it’s like Gmail, Google Talk and Google Docs all mashed up into one service, with Facebook-style applications thrown in for customisation...

Continue reading the full article here.