• by Laurie Sullivan , September 30, 2009

Google delivered more than 100,000 invitations Wednesday to people so they could begin testing Wave, but some of those invites found their way to the auction site eBay. Wave, a communication and collaboration tool announced earlier this year, integrates e-mail, social networking, instant messaging, and real-time editing.

Unlike the golden ticket that Charlie found in the Wonka candy bar wrapper that gave him entrance into the chocolate factory, these invites were emailed to Web developers who have been active in the developer preview cycle since June. The people signed up early and gave feedback on the project. Those who received invitations could nominate up to five friends who also received invitations.

By 11 a.m. PDT, three invitations were found on the auction site. One auctioneer -- imarket, who started the bid at $150 -- writes, "the winning bidder will have to give me a little description of his/hers intentions with Google Wave. I will not deliver the invite for people with intentions of spam, illegal activities and porn."

The tickets are being sold regardless of Google's rules. According to the Google Wave Program Policies, it's against the rules to generate or facilitate unsolicited commercial messages, such as spam. Prohibited actions also mean selling, trading, reselling or otherwise exploiting the service for any unauthorized commercial purpose. So, selling the tickets on eBay could teeter on a violation.

Sellers appear to turn a blind eye to the rules. The bidding for the invites went from $10 to $243.50 by noon PDT on 35 bids. The Boston, Mass. eBay seller has been fielding questions on his eBay account continually. In an email response, he acknowledges the "one invite and it is being sold."

Lars Rasmussen, software engineering manager who codeveloped Google Wave in Australia, explains in a blog post that conversation and document comprise "a wave." The tool lets you create a wave and add people.

Everyone on the wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and feeds from other sources across the Web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. "It's concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave," Rasmussen writes, which means people can use the tool to instant-message or send an email.

Google did not return requests for a response by the time this story posted.