Etherpad Shows Google Docs How It’s Done

Joel Liu's personal annotations on this page

Joel bookmarked on 2008-11-20 collaboration tools

A team of ex-Googlers, with backing from Y Combinator, the Friendfeed founders and others, have created what might be both the ugliest and most useful group productivity app we’ve seen. Etherpad, a new product from Appjet, launches this morning, and you must try it out.
Users can also chat in the sidebar, save versions and make a few tweaks to the settings like removing line numbers. One great feature optionally highlights Javascript syntax (making this a great way to write code collaboratively) And that’s it for now. There is very little bling to the site at this point.
This instantly became a must-use application for me. It makes phone calls a lot more productive - just open up a workspace and take notes together, in real time.
Like Yammer (which spun out of Geni), Etherpad wasn’t the core focus on the company (see our previous coverage of Appjet here and here). Iba says the team needed a tool like Etherpad and just created it for internal use. Now they’re unleashing it on the rest of us, which is quite nice of them.

This link has been bookmarked by 16 people . It was first bookmarked on 19 Nov 2008, by Graham Lawrence.

14 May 09

L Prosen
etherpad tools collaboration
19 Feb 09

Ben Simanek
23 Jan 09

hari krishna bodapati
online editing web2.0
charles edwards
chazmodogzx
05 Dec 08

A D
webservice
21 Nov 08
20 Nov 08

Joel Liu
collaboration tools
- A team of ex-Googlers, with backing from Y Combinator, the Friendfeed founders and others, have created what might be both the ugliest and most useful group productivity app we’ve seen. Etherpad, a new product from Appjet, launches this morning, and you must try it out.
- Users can also chat in the sidebar, save versions and make a few tweaks to the settings like removing line numbers. One great feature optionally highlights Javascript syntax (making this a great way to write code collaboratively) And that’s it for now. There is very little bling to the site at this point.
- 2 more annotations...
- - This instantly became a must-use application for me. It makes phone calls a lot more productive - just open up a workspace and take notes together, in real time.
  - Like Yammer (which spun out of Geni), Etherpad wasn’t the core focus on the company (see our previous coverage of Appjet here and here). Iba says the team needed a tool like Etherpad and just created it for internal use. Now they’re unleashing it on the rest of us, which is quite nice of them.
19 Nov 08

Chris Penny
etherpad techcrunch
Bruce Vigneault
googledocs collaboration
- It’s comparable to Google Docs or a wiki, but it’s far more useful. You start off by creating a new workspace. You type basic text on numbered lines at will. Then invite someone else in and have them type as well. Each user’s edits are highlighted a different color. Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn’t been able to do (Google docs update every fifteen seconds).
- This instantly became a must-use application for me. It makes phone calls a lot more productive - just open up a workspace and take notes together, in real time
David Miles
tools Collaboration software wiki collaborative editing
Graham Lawrence
etherpad writing collaboration