The Google Wave invitation posted for sale on eBay has been removed -- but not before it received numerous bids and skyrocketed in price to $5,000.
The Wall Street Journal describes the frenzy that erupted after Hagan Blount, a food blogger, put the invitation up for sale:
Mr. Blount commenced the auction on Tuesday night, and by the time he had woken up at 6 a.m. Wednesday, the day that Google would be releasing Wave invites, his auction had already received 12,000 hits.
As the day wore on, he received about 33 bids for the Google Wave invite, with the winning bid reaching $157. One eBay user tried to set up two accounts and entered a bid for $5,000, which Mr. Blount quickly deleted. Dozens of questions piled up in his eBay account inbox, asking him if the Wave invite was real, and if so, whether it could be purchased on the spot. One man from Sweden offered $700 to buy it outright, and another who identified himself as "a businessman" said he would pony up $27,000 if the invite was authentic.
The Google Wave, which is still in development, is being released for wider testing. 100,000 users (invite only) will get to try the new product, although, although according to CNET more than 1 million people clamored to be in the test group.
Read more about the Google Wave here.