In my last post about Google Wave, I specifically called out the fact that I thought Google was planning an app store:

The conversation container will become the new AppStore.  Adding capabilities to a conversation requires that you be able to find that software and import it into the conversation.  The conversation container is king in this respect.  There's a big potential here for conversation containers to displace the iTunes App Store as the hottest new software distribution channel.  I would be shocked if Google isn't already looking at this--if they have the pre-eminent conversation container then they have an opportunity to displace Apple in the App Store business.

Well, today that's been confirmed:

While most of us were aware of the Wave API and the potential for developers to build and charge for their applications, Google’s intentions to build a full fledged app store were not so concrete yet highlights their commitment to the platform and the developers building for it.

If you're still skeptical about Google Wave, you need to check your head.  Don't judge it based on how it looks today, try to have a little vision and see what it can (will) become.  Google is obviously making a huge bet on this--as they should.

As overpriced as I think Google's stock currently is based on their current advertising model, and as overpriced as the market as a whole currently is, it's damn tempting to pick up some Google stock right now.  They obviously have the vision and are executing on it.

More thoughts on this to follow as it was just a guess before but it's now become a reality.

I view a major shift in technology, like the one that I see materializing right now with Google Wave (the protocol), as a huge object crashing into a an existing landscape.  There's this massive change right in the middle, a new space that has to be filled, and then all these fissures spidering out from the main event where the rest of the world is affected by that event--new spaces that must be filled with something.

One of the fun things about technology disruptions is trying to figure out what the landscape will look like after the main event.  It's those changes that nimble businesses can take advantage of to pivot into the new spaces that were created.  For example when the Web finally went mainstream it created an entirely new industry, but it then proceeded to change the way every other existing industry operated to some degree, and we're still working through that with things like hosted applications and the SaaS model.