Email is great. Everyone has an email address (or four). It's instant. It's free or really cheap. You can't lose it like you could lose a piece of paper.

But email also kinda sucks. Its formatting potential is severely limited. You can attach almost any kind of file, but there's no guaranty that your recipient's email system can handle it because of size or file-type limitations. And if you accidentally delete a really important email, it's gone.

Well, the two brothers at Google who came up with Google Maps have come up with what they think could replace email. And we think they might be right.

If you've got an hour and a half to kill (hey — it's Friday), watch the demo of Google Wave here.

Otherwise, read a nice summary of the application here.

Google Wave lives on Google's servers. It's not software on your computer. You can use it anywhere, from any browser or mobile device that has internet access. So you can communicate, collaborate, and share files virtually anywhere, without being tied to a specific platform or "your" computer. It's like Email, Twitter, Instant Messaging, Facebook, and Flickr all in one solution. It's pretty brilliant, and it's coming later this year.