With Google Wave just around the corner, it surprises me that Google would bother with adding a chat feature to iGoogle. I can only imagine that this feature must be incorporated in some way with the roll-out of Google Wave. For those of you who don’t know what Google Wave is, refer to my previous post on “Google Wave to Revolutionize Online Communication” or watch the condensed version of this 80 minute video clip below:

Basically, Google Wave is an email client with messenger capabilities and an added photo sharing with blog update-ability. Now Wave is of course mobile friendly and as a result I can see it doing away with the need to use both Twitter and Facebook. I welcome Wave with open arms if I can dump Twitter, Facebook, Messenger and other less important programs in favour of Google Wave.

It has been 2.5 months since my last post about Google Wave, so I can only image that it must be right around the corner. Over the past 2.5 months a selection of people (10,000) have been testing a Beta version (officially referred to as the Google Wave Sandbox) of Google Wave to iron out bugs and add new features as these beta people see fit and as Google sees worthy. On September 30th, Google Wave will be rolled out to 100,000 members of the general public in what will most likely be the official Beta Release of Google Wave.

Google Wave may also be doing away with programs such as Microsoft Word and will no doubt incorporate similarities to Excel and powerpoint also. Documents, in the example above, can be edited by multiple parties at any one time, cutting down on editing times drastically as all is done in real time (seemingly from anywhere across the globe).

An instant translator tool and polling abilities just add to the fun. I just cannot wait for the release of Google Wave!