Is the new Google Wave going to call time on Twitter just when that particular Web 2.0 property has become the app to have open on your desktop at all times? I think there's a strong possibility, but only if Google starts to make the much needed changes in its approach to new product marketing that will ensure future success. More on that in a minute.

Don't get me wrong though, I love Twitter as much as anyone, but I've really started to find the whole 140 character restriction thing a bind, even if that's pretty much the point of the exercise.

140 characters; about the same length as a search engine site meta description snippet. It's a great way of practising your Adwords and SEO skills, but it hardly amounts to a conversation, and that's the big problem. Twitter, and the deliberate string length limitation, are tailor made for the SMS/instant-messaging/text-speak-forum-comment mentality where a lot is said, most of it gossip and nothing in any particular detail.

Even those heavy Twitter users who aspire to marketing guru status tend to just post lifestyle comments of pretty limited interest mixed with direct links to their latest blog posts - hardly the cutting edge thinking you'd expect from them.

Overall, it's a pretty thin experience and one that I've quickly tired of - a bit like subsisting on a diet of nachos; tasty initially but you soon long for some real meat.

Enter Google Wave.