I remember trading a set of 20 recipes (emailed) for my gmail account invite, but that was free and, anyway, I could send anyone email from my gmail. This is just silly.

Uh, why in the hell do you need to own the copyright of something to sell it? That makes no sense.

I am sure google competitors would pay to get an early preview of what they are up against.

Also there is a lot of money to be made for the first developers to produce good plugins for wave.

Think of the first IPhone Apps, the ones with the most hits that ride the top of the charts.

The Web2.0 is all about being first and beating the flood of clones to the customers.

I got an invite in my inbox this morning... if I had known people were selling them, I probably would have traded it for cash. But as it were, I used it.

I found that you can only wave at other people with wave accounts, which in my case, turns out to be pretty much no one I know, so until I can get some of my friends signed up, I won't be using it much. And, unlike the gmail fiasco, I can't find a way to give invites to others to join.

You're missing the point. There is a lot of s..... people out there that need to be part of 'something' to feel that they're worth something. Same way people by phones that are good at everything except making phone calls just to say they have or part of the latest trend.

Of course, you're missing a point! People want to use it to build Wave plug-ins and make some money from that (eventually). At least that's what I was thinking about...

I had 2 Grand Central accounts before it was bought by Google and switched to Google Voice, so I was switched over but also received an invite for a third number (which my wife now has). I actually never though of trying to sell it, but now it doesn't sound so crazy (intellectual property rights notwithstanding).

PS: On another note, loved the phrase "The WSJ story is behind the paywall." So true. (Rumor had it last year WSJ was going to eliminate it's pay service - guess not)

Hi Clint,

Two of the possible reasons.

1) Some bidders just want to be "cool" to have a toy to play with.

2) Some bidders may simply want to evaluate Google Wave to see if they can build some sort of business around it. And without an account, they will have to wait. And if these bidders mean business, paying a few hundred bucks to have an early opportunity to evaluate Wave is not a bad price to pay. Simply cost of an early look.

If you are a competitor, you wan't to get a jump on analyzing and deconstructing their software as quickly as possible. That's a pretty good reason right there.

"was violating the site's terms of service by trying to sell an item without owning the copyright."
Ebay is in the wrong here. There is no copyright infringement, and thus, sellers trying to sell the INVITATION should object to the blocking.

And for the record, since only 100k invites were sold, this makes them valuable to people who might want to take a step to build applications for it.

Sorry, Clint, but this makes perfect sense from a software development side, where "$27,000" can be made back up in the long term.

What you're missing is the ability to develop external API's, and the potential to develop key API's that go into wide use once Wave opens up to the public.

The potential power of Wave is that basically any messaging system could, with the use of the proper API's, be wrapped up into Wave. To bridge various popular messaging services into Wave, though, will be a lot of work, which Google is leaving to open source developers.

So early access to Wave means that you could be the guy that writes the API that bridges, say, Facebook and Wave, or Livejournal and Wave. While Google has revealed Wave operating on iPhone and gPhone, BlackBerry is still apparently left out-- so if you're the guy who writes the bridge to BlackBerry, again, you'll be writing one of the most famous pieces of Wave. Also, writing the first message board that fully integrates with Wave, or a wave bridge that skips Twitter and handles SMS and MMS messaging directly. Imagine bridging Google Phone with Wave, or other visual voice-mail systems-- the opportunities are pretty broad. These are tons of things that Wave is capable of integrating into it's one-stop approach, but have yet to be developed, waiting for some promising up-and-coming developer to do so through Wave's open-source approach.

For a developer, it's an unprecedented opportunity to establish a name for yourself, which could lead to lucrative opportunities with Google itself or with other potential employers. Writing a major Google Wave API could literally make someone's career, so it's no surprise that there are so many developers willing to pay for access now, when development opportunities are limited, than later, when it's an open boat. Access now means you get first cut at easy stuff, whereas later will probably take more innovation to cover more obscure messaging systems that are still left out.

I was in the "lucky 100k" and was awarded 8 wave invites. Ostensibly, when you sign up, you get to invite 8 people.

Wave is indeed useless without just about all of your friends using it.

Side note: invites are taking at least a day to get to people. Mine came this AM, and they supposedly began going out last night.

Fair enough. I suppose developers who got hold of Wave in the early preview are after the same thing?

I beg to differ on the insanity, if I have not gotten my Wave developer account few months ago I would've done anything to get an invite, writing early applications is a killer, certainly I have written many useful ones so far and that makes a huge difference between a developer starting writing apps on the public release date and someone who is already finishing his apps before that date.

Who remembers when EBay removed the auction for a guy's "immortal soul?" It was removed because it was either a scam (in that it does not exist) or medical waste (human parts).

I've had a Wave account since mid-June. It's a great system in theory, but all you can do now is play with it as there are few users.

I predict that in 5 years, most people who do e-mail will also do Wave, especially businesses as a business can house their own Wave server and keep all the information in house.

Wave is best for collaborative projects, virtually any kind from music to maps to mayhem.

The only thing you're missing is the fact that despite our species having clawed its way to the top of the evolutionary heap, we brought along a lot of others who shouldn't have gotten as far as they did.

Somewhere, Darwin is making notes about the evolutionary future of humanity and is shaking his head.

The end of your article: "Grrrrrrr." sums it all up perfectly.

I'm more shocked at the reasoning behind why ebay pulled the listing. They're saying because he doesn't own the copyright of Google that he can't sell the stuff. Or were they simply gunning for the removal and would use any reason they could to get it off the site. Its really interesting, I wonder why the Google t-shirts are not yanked from the site, or the NBA tickets. I mean really, most sellers reselling items are not owners of the copyright. If ebay flexes their muscle on this, then why can't they remove the counterfeits that are out there. You telling me Google pulled a Vero and requested it removed?

This shows more about how ebay is a venue only when they have to go to court. When no one is looking, they behave just like a retailer with full control to make decisions on what is on the site.

"...trying to sell an item without owning the copyright"

What does owning copyright have to do with selling a Wave account? You can sell books and music without owning their copyright on ebay. Do accounts even have a copyright?

Hey, I bought 3 google voice invites off Ebay a month ago for $2 each. I just got my official ones from google this morning (4 weeks later)

Hard to believe that this article was written by an eweek reporter/editor. Baffled by this? Come on, get real.

Developers vying for the competitive edge have been doing all sorts of creative things to get their hands on pre-released products and related API docs/SDKs for decades. The pressure to beat competitors to market has been so great for all this time that some developers resort to illegal means. Not that in this case it was illegal.

What's this about copyright? Nonsense. Even when you BUY a copy of released software, you are NOT buying a copyright...instead you are buying either a license to use the software (most typical) or a copy of the software (just like a book).

Time to upgrade eweek writers to more knowledgeable tech industry types.

Good to see thieving, conniving, money-grubbing geeks exist as much as crooked executives.