Google Wave was introduced as an early preview to developers last month at Google I/O 2009. The first 20 minutes of the video show you the new features of this groundbreaking product – imagine an email client that allows you to integrate real time chat, document sharing, and play back functionalities on threaded conversation. I can’t do the preview justice so if you haven’t seen the preview yet, check it out below:

Although there is not yet a clear new opportunity to engage consumers through Google Wave, one thing is certain – users will be having more conversations on the web. Obvious marketing opportunities are centered around new ad placement and the ability for marketers to join in more conversations but the question is – will there be a new way to engage customers? Google introduced the product to developer first for a good reason, as Matt Kapko from iMedia Connect points out on his article, The undiscovered marketing power of Google Wave. Google decided to make Google Wave open source to let develops built upon it. As we have seen from the thousands of applications developed for Twitter and Facebook – many catering to marketing and PR professionals, developers will surely conjure ways to bring more marketing value to the Wave.

Can you think of ways Google will monetize Google Wave beyond contextual ads? Will Google develop a system that can deduce logical meaning from conversations as they happen on Waves to deliver real time ads? What applications do you predict developers will create to compliment Google Wave and add value to marketers and customers?

UPDATE: Keep track of all Google Wave Gadgets and Updates on Wavety and @Wavety on Twitter

How to get and invitation to Google Wave?

DEVELOPERS – use this form
THE REST OF US – use this form and wait for several months

Just created a Google Groups profile and joined two groups: Social Media Research and Social Press Releases. I’m excite to further explore what Google Groups has to offer. Seems like a great community to share and discuss ideas, files, research and other media. Anyone out there part of Google Groups? I will create a group based on suggestions from readers…