How is Google Wave better??

1) You can tag your conversations - helps you search easily when required

Once you've tagged a wave, any participant in that wave can use the tag word to search for it.

How to create tags --

1. Open the wave you'd like to tag.
2. At the bottom of the wave, click (+) next to Tags:.
3. Enter in the box that appears the word with which you'd like to tag the wave.

How to search the wave using tags --

Search operator - tag:[tagname]

eg- tag:pics
tag:"party pics" (note the " at the begin and end of the tag name which is more than one word)

2) Following: You're automatically following any wave to which you've contributed or been added. You can also choose to follow any public wave by clicking Follow in the toolbar. Any time these waves update, you'll see them in your inbox. If you no longer want a wave to appear in your inbox, click Unfollow. Unfollowed waves are still available in search.

What is a Wave in Google wave??

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Source - GoogleWave