For something like half a year, Google has been both dropping hints and hurling hype about its new Wave product, which is now in beta and may still be as nebulous as it ever has been.

Invites have been fairly difficult to get (though we got one) and Google Wave is now in a good-sized beta state, with approximately 100,000 people signed up to participate. It has been hyped as many things, but it is still a little difficult to tell exactly where Google is going with this program. Wave has been hailed as everything from email on steroids to a collaborative computer-driven wonder to Google’s idea of a social networking and media site. Regardless of what it turns out to be in its final form, it is interesting to participate in the beta and watch it grow inch by mile by inch.

There are still a lot of primarily small flaws, but it is obvious that programmers are working to both fix little glitches and to add new features. Regardless, the times that it has worked as advertised have offered a tantalizing view of a new way to multi-communicate on the Web. If all that Google has promised comes true, they may have come up with a very interesting multitalented service, one which brings together several of the most popular features of the Web.

Yes, it does do email. Yes, it does act a bit like a forum. Yes, it allows you to collaborate with others on documents (when things are going well in the beta software). Yes, it allows you to do real-time IM within a Wave thread. Plus, it all runs in the cloud. And there is more to come, including promised extensions to make the Wave experience even more beneficial and significant. It’s a little rough just now, and we have no idea how it will perform when it comes out of beta and runs into a really heavy load. All that can be said now is that is has promise. Ask around among your online friends and see if you can wangle a Wave invitation. You might be surprised at what you find.

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It was only a few years ago that email was by far the most popular and common method of communication on the Web. We were all known by our @ address and handed it out to all and sundry, whether we wanted them to contact us or not. But things have now changed. Email is dead, or at least dying, and being replaced by real-time communication tools.

I remember a time not so very long ago when I’d receive emails every day. Family, friends, co-workers, bosses, casual contacts, and spammers would be fighting over themselves to send me multiple emails. These contained links, jokes, missives, inquiries as to my wellbeing, and spam.

The spam has remained, although it has definitely become less of a problem thanks to tougher spam filters from all the major email clients. And I still get emails from bosses. But the rest? Well, that has pretty much all stopped, with family, friends, co-workers, and casual contacts using other methods to communicate with me.

The Wall Street Journal takes an in-depth look at the evolution of Internet communication. In essence, while email was once the fastest way to speak to someone, short of actually phoning them, now it’s considered slow in the face of competition from social networks and text messaging.

In the days of dial-up, we’d all be online in fits and starts, logging on, checking for messages, and then logging off again. But now most of us are connected to the Web, and each other, at all times one way or another. Be it on our home PC or laptop, work machine, or smartphone, we’re now all available to contact all day and night, with only sleep getting in the way of a truly 24-hour online experience.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have also introduced new elements which are helping to kill email off. We have online profiles, usually on multiple sites, which provide anyone who’s interested with information about ourselves. And by regular tweets (on Twitter) or status updates (on Facebook) there’s now no need for anyone to email to ask how we’re doing. It’s there for anyone and everyone to see in real-time.

And with new efforts such as Google Wave on their way to increase real-time interaction even more, it looks as though email truly is heading the way of the dinosaur.

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