Google Wave Supercool Extensions

I wrote about Google Wave at SEL this morning and more extensively earlier in the month. Today Google invited about 100K new users into Wave. That was the basic news. The bigger news in my opinion is the launch of what amounts to a developer “app store,” being called Wave extensions:

When you first encounter Wave it’s not entirely clear what the heck it is. It looks like email, but then there’s the real-time IM aspect. And then one gets the sense that much more could go on here. That’s what these extensions very concretely illustrate. Ribbit is providing a conference calling function; 6 rounds is doing video chat through Wave.

But also check out Lonely Planet’s travel planning collaboration tool Trippy:

Along the same lines there’s collaborative map creation in the Google Maps Wave widget:

These and other (B2B, B2C, C2C) extensions to come will be what really “sell” Wave to the public. Beyond the phrases “collaboration” and “real time,” these extensions help to answer the “why question” — as in why should we use it.