Google Wave: Developers paddle in

The ultimate sin of tech writing is beginning a post on a Web topic with "surf's up," hang ten," or some other tired, they-were-saying-this-in-1997-and-it-was-cheesy-then phrase. But here goes: "We're waxin' down our surfboards, we can't wait till ... September." Sorry.

Word from the Interwebs is that Google has opened its ambitious Wave service to more developers – up to 26,000 over the next month, according to TechCrunch – and they're beginning to voice their opinions. The public will begin to be invited in September, when 100,000 invites will go out to those who've opted-in.

Google Wave, you'll remember, is the Internet giant's attempt at offering "what email would look like if it were designed today," a realtime-updating collaborative creation and communication engine. Think IM meets e-mail meets Facebook meets Google Docs, with helpful widgets thrown in.

SolidState Group's Ben Rometsch posted one the first and most comprehensive looks at what using the system is like. And even in it's bug-riddled state – every half hour or so a large javascript error banner pops up, and the only way to fix it is to restart everything – he remarks that "using it suddenly makes Chrome and Chrome OS make a whole lot of sense."

His post is worth a read, but here's Rometsch's take on what Google needs to address to help make Wave a success:

• How it is presented to people. Google need to come up with a coherent, one sentence answer to "What is it?" that people like my Dad (who calls his web browser "the Google") can comprehend

• How well it integrates with existing protocols like Email and IM

• How much Javascript engines develop in the next 12 months

• How third party developers leverage the platform in crazy and ingenious ways

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