Google Wave, the community creative collaboration site, has now been opened for public use. There were some rumours circulating around the Web that the service may never get a public airing, but this open invite should dispel the myth.

Originally users could only come and play in Google's Wave if they received an invite to the closed beta version. Invites weren't exactly like Willy Wonka golden tickets, but you still had to do a bit of digging around to get one. The service is now available for everyone, although Google is keeping its labs tag on it, so there might still be a few bugs to be ironed out.

As it stands, Google Wave is a stand-alone service from the big G, although there have been suggestions that it may be integrated into Gmail, particularly given the problems that its social sharing service, Buzz, has endured.

Google Wave is a real time, content rich collaboration service which allows you to share "waves" with your networks and contacts. "A wave is a live, shared space on the web where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more", says Google. Check out our guide of five things Google Wave can do for you.

Give Wave a bash and let us know what you think? The next social explosion on the web, or merely another Google labs product that won't make the grade?