Google on Ulitzer

Google Wave, the amorphous open source widgetry that Google has trouble explaining but contends - silly Google - will replace e-mail, the most viral application ever, started moving into a wider test group of some 100,000 users Wednesday ahead of a still wider release in December.

It's akin to a limited launch. Wave reportedly got a million requests for early access.

Wave's Australian-based developers describe e-mail as the Internet version of snail mail; e-mail isn't fast enough or multitasking enough.

The latest cut of Wave includes people who signed up early for the preview, developers active with the thing and some Google Apps users.

The communications widgetry - from the same people that created Google Maps - is suspected of being either Google's answer to unified communications or to social networking.

Since Wave was unveiled in May, the company has reportedly been fixated on scaling it, stabilizing it, making it faster and more useable. It admits it's still bug-infested, crash-prone, slow and "quirky."

Wave is supposed to combine highly shareable elements of e-mail, chat, wiki documents, blogs and photo sharing on a single platform, creating a so-called "hosted conversation" or "wave."

A user can, say, chat about a document or do document edits in real-time; e-mail can be edited by several people simultaneously; a replay any conversation.

It's estimated Wave is still a year away.