It’s the geeks’ equivalent of the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Except that if you’re a bona fide geek you probably had no problem procuring an invite to Google Wave when it launched its beta phase earlier this year. As one of the blundering, dim-witted masses who take that bit longer to care, I only got mine last week via a friend’s Facebook status update. (Ugh, this post is already way too Mashable-esque for my liking).

You might be expecting me to tell you how it’s revolutionised the way I go about my online business like a budding springtime of web 3.0 futurism. But unfortunately I have yet to get it. And I suspect I won’t until it goes live and more of my web-aware buddies and workmates enter the funhouse.

I’ve only ridden (?) one wave so far, and it came across like nothing more than an instant message chatbox where you see the other person’s typing in real time. It lasted about two minutes before the wave washed up on a beach of inanity and ennui, and I swiftly gave up the experiment.

But as a daily user of Google’s excellent services (Reader, Analytics, Blogger, Documents…), I’m thinking it will all become clear some day.

So are you any further forward? What uses have you found for it? What limitations does it have?