Nov. 8, 2009 (The Hindu Business Line) --

by technology.

I was almost consumed by a great Wave last month. It is a miracle I am still sane.

It all started when I read about Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) ’s new service called Wave. It was supposed to be some sort of collaboration/sharing platform. That’s all I knew about it. But I wanted it the moment it was launched.

No. Please don’t ask me why. I don‘t know. May be because it was from Google (I am a Google fan). May be because it was a type of service I hadn’t used so far. Or may be just because it was new.

But there was one problem. Google had decided to dish out ‘invites’ to only select people, and it dawned on me that I wasn’t among them. I was beginning to get desperate. I registered with all my Google IDs in the Wave Web site requesting an invite. But Google ignored me and my ‘requests’.

I then registered in sites that allowed the fortunate guys who had received invites to send invites (each one is allowed seven invites) to have-nots like me.

Again, the result was blank.

It was then that I almost did something I had never done in my life. I decided to beg. I almost tweeted to one of the ‘fortunate’ guys to send me an invite. But better sense prevailed and I deleted the tweet in time.

Then it dawned on me. Surely, there must be sites offering services similar to Wave?

I scoured the Net. Yes, there were. I was glad I had not begged. And I promptly registered in all of them. The only problem is they don’t integrate with my Gmail or Google Docs.

Now I have three or four ‘Wave-like’ accounts. And am just getting the hang of it.

At the same time, I am still eagerly awaiting the elusive invite. I am waiting for the Wave.

R. Dinakaran