Slashdot Mirror
Google Enters Web-Office Market
jaiva writes "Google's official blog tells us that Google has acquired Writely, a collaborative word processor." From the article: "To be clear, Writely is still in beta, and it's far from perfect. Upholding our great user experience means everything to us, so we're not accepting new registrations until we've moved Writely to Google's software architecture. If you're interested in giving us a try, we hope you'll get on the waitlist so we can let you know when you'll be able to try out Writely."
First
Intercom: "Mr Writely, would you please proceed to the 34th floor."
:)
Writely: "I'm going up to the 34th floor!"
Lift Guy: "Hiya Writely, going down again today?"
Writely: "Hey there Preston. Nope, I'm going upstairs today!"
Lift Guy: "Ahhhhh you've been called to the 14th floor again?"
Writely: "No, I'm going higher than that. This is a call all the way to the top - the very top!"
Lift Guy: "Woooooooow, I hear they have Aeron Chairs up there!"
This looks really cool
liqbase
In other news, Google releases a new slogan:
"What starts in beta, stays in beta"
Typical slashdoter... not checking www.bugmenot.com .... Try this
Login: boston@dodgeit.com
Password: Boston
Enjoy! (Yes I tested it unless some troll changed the password. )
To be clear, Writely is still in beta, and it's far from perfect.
A perfect into the Google product line.
I'd really be interested in something along these lines... but with wiki integration! How cool would that be? WYSIWIG wiki, end user focused, and with security features.... so that even dumb people could use it... err.. I think thats what this is huh?
--Matt Wong
http://www.themindofmatthew.com
till i can upload my company files to an American advertising based company so they can rifle through our documents looking for whatever them or their goverment takes their fancy
yeah i can predict this will be a great success
Love, Gogle Developmint Teem
While there is great debate about googles master plan or if it has one. The whole concept that they make things and then try to make them profitable. The more i see their actions the more a threat to almost every element of the PC industry they present.
1-Online Storage
2-Office Suite Program
3-Data Search
4-E-Mail, Chat
5-Entertainment (Video, Photos)
6-Online Sales ?7?-Games?? (is this a possibility down the line) A large sector with big potential
I'll be honest I am one who thinks that eventually we are going to be returning to dummy terminals, a lot of these items would support that. I think they have a bigger plan, and I think we are beginning to see pieces that fit together. But also they have one or two more cards they havent played yet.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
Can't these guys invent something new? They do a lot of good things, but it seems like all they do is embrace a new technology, buy a company, then extend it if they feel the need.
;)
What next? Online e-mail?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
From the Writely web site:
What browsers does Writely support?
Writely will work wherever you have access to the Internet via a Windows or Macintosh computer with one of these browsers:
* IE 5.5+ (Windows)
* Mozilla 1.4+ (Mac & Windows)
* Firefox 1.0.6+ (Mac & Windows)
Writely is not supported, and probably won't run on*:
* IE 5 (Mac) or IE 4 (Windows)
* Netscape 4
* Opera
* Safari
Regardless of your browser type, you must:
* Enable cookies
* Enable Javascript
In other words, it requires junk like cookies and javascript, and it does not function with every web browser not with every operating system. Curious, wasn't the web about open document access? Must have been a long, long time ago.
Slashpoo^H^H^Hdot:
A collaborati^H^H^Hative environment is the^H^H^H only good if you hate^H^H^H^H trust the people you are working with.
---
I have used my share of realtime collaborative environments. For some reason, someone is always immature enough to start drawing rude pictures or writing pointless statements.
While I realize it isn't always the case, I find that half of the people I collaborate with online are in the same building. Come visit, lets go for a coffee and work on the same document there.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
This is certainly a step in the right direction. I'm interested in automatic document generation, and it's a coincidence that Peter Norvig gave a talk at a colloquium here at BYU this morning. I asked him if he thought Google would ever get into the business of automatically generating documents using their 500 TB of data as a source (i.e. automatically created Wikipedia articles on any subject). He said no, because of copyright issues and the like, but it'll be interesting to see how "Writely" turns out. It seems like it's a stepping stone to completely automated document generation, and might yield some good ideas.
On one hand, this may be an intro into a market in which Google will begin to destroy Microsoft's market share. On the other hand, this could be just the opportunity Microsoft needs to bring Google down. Google and Microsoft will now have products in the same category: Word Processors.
Not only "land of the free" but "land of the lawyers" who love a good old 1st amendment smackdown. Shihar 153932
Writely is based upon ASP.NET.
Will this save them appreciable time? They will have to do a rewrite or be based on Microsoft technology (yeah, right).
One of the most impressive features of Writely is that it integrates perfectlly with Word and OpenOffice.
From their FAQ:
* Upload Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text (or create documents from scratch).
* Use our simple WYSIWYG editor to format your documents, spell-check them, etc.
* Invite others to share your documents (by e-mail address).
* Edit documents online with whomever you choose.
* View your documents' revision history and roll back to any version.
* Publish documents online to the world, or to just who you choose.
* Download documents to your desktop as Word, OpenOffice, RTF, PDF*, HTML or zip.
* Post your documents to your blog.
They have stopped taking new users for now. They say that "while we're moving Writely to Google's software architecture, we're closing off new registrations." The integration will take time and effort, and the last thing they need is to be dealing with tons of new users wanting to be a part of the latest Google thing. That was a wise move.
So instead of Javascript would you prefer ActiveX? Basically you have to pick one.
Developers: We can use your help.
From the article: "To be clear, Writely is still in beta...
I guess we all know that without someone making it clear...
"a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser"
This sort of app is awfully reminiscent of The World Wide Web, written by Tim Berners-Lee at Cern a while back. Anything ever come of that...?
She sounds like Napoleon after starting the war against russia, or maybe Einstein telling someone time is relative and space is bent.
Oh my GOD, sharing DOCUMENTS??? REVOLUTION! Someone call Nobel. He has TO GIVE HER A PRICE.
Fleur de Sel
Another alternative to M$ is gOffice.com
-Palal
I kid you not.
Please establish a hypertext link to this message. Spread the word!
I've used Writely for about 5 months now. Obviously I like it, but what I see as the pros + cons are:
;) If you're not doing those, then it just becomes a trade-off between privacy and convenience.
;)
Pros
* Good, clean user interface
* Access documents from anywhere (main reason I use it)
* Don't lose your documents if your PC dies
* Sharing documents is good when planning things in groups
Cons
* Privacy issues
* Not as feature rich as Word
Privacy wasn't really a concern of mine, mainly because the documents I work on aren't highly confidential -- I'm not writing down my PIN numbers and not plotting evil plans.
Features I'd like them to add include: user-defined styles, ability to copy/paste graphics, and improved table layouts. So far though, it's pretty good.
In other words, check it out once it's open again.
MyLinkVault - online bookmarks with a fast drag-and-dr
Is this an attempt for Google to compete with Microsoft in word processing? Because as cool as this may be, it's going to be mighty difficult to topple Microsoft in that department. The Office Suite is so embedded in the corporate world and homes that garnering support for this product will be difficult at best. People know how to use Word. The majority won't want to go to something else that is new and shiny. CIO's won't take the risk of switching over to a new system when they already have a tried and tested system in place.
Microsoft already whipped most opposition to it. Also, after development is this going to be free or is the consumer going to end up paying for the privelege?
It appears more and more apparent that Google is basing their business model on Microsoft (acquire and re-badge).
I'd love to see Google actually take the fight to Microsoft on something that Microsoft has not traditionally been strong at and show them how it should be done. Show them that they are innovaters and not just tagging along on already established software. Trying and compete with them on this front is almost a lost cause.
I wonder if this means that I can now post to my blogger site directly from Writely. I've had Writely for a month now and still have never gotten it work like it says it will. Since they are both google properties I hope they get that fixed sooner now.
* Home page says "Store your documents securely online."
* Sign-in page says "Simple & secure document collaboration and publishing"
So if it's so secure, why isn't SSL used *anywhere* on the site? The even more strange thing is that there is a secure cert on the site at https://www.writely.com/ but nothing actually links to it...ho hum. Yes, you can indeed login via SSL if you want - apparently they're worried about server load if they made SSL the default... Maybe with the Google infrastructure behind them, they can turn on SSL by default?
Am I the only one, who thinks, that Google as a whole is becoming the best data source for intelligence agencies? Poeple search, read books, find products, read news, read and send email, post classifieds, read and post to newsgroups, look for friends on orkut, blog on blogger, I can hardly finish... Is it so difficult, to draw such a very bad picture of Google being one of the best targets for an intelligence agency? I mean, those organisations know how to bring their people into a trusted circle...
this as a first attempt at killing microsofts software market. first go for the big cash cow - office, then the operating system after. google hasn't messed up yet so microsoft have good reason to be scared.
somewhere in redmond a chair is flying.
Wait, which one of them doesn't do Searching, Web News, Web Mail, Online Mapping, and Image Searching?
Because if Word Processors are the only thing they compete on, something else must have changed.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Check out spore. Ok, so it's not from Google, but it is hosted on their page. I'm posting this link because it just looks like such a cool idea.
Willy
I'd list a lot more cons than that. I've been using Writely for a while also. I experimented with it as a means to document customer networks on the go, but decided that security is too much of a concern for sensitive data. As a word processor, it lacks some very basic elements, such as tab stops. The problem is that this type of functionality can be very difficult to emulate using native browser widgets. The interface is also very buggy. I regularly run into unexpected behavior when editing documents.
I think the idea is really cool, but when Google says that this product is in Beta, they really mean it this time.
Several ex-Googlers I know have claimed that they get regular visits from the NSA and a few visits from various Israeli agencies, and that data sharing has indeed occurred. - posting through several proxies
"Unless these guys are on the case."
Google:
We know what you have. (You've indexed your hard drives.)
We know where you [and family] live. (All mark their homes on Google Maps.)
We know who you like; we know who you hate. (Chat & e-mail.)
We know what you buy. (Let's be frugal.)
We know where you go. (What's happening G-locally?)
We know when you sleep; when you awaken. (Usage analysis.)
And now, we know virtually all your thoughts & plans. (Using Writely?)
Motto: At Google, your world is our world.
/.'s Psychic-in-Residence: Psychic to the Geeks
Is this just web based MS OneNote? I fail to see the value.
Imagine this:
...
Papers: Wallstreet disappointed in ms share erosion due to Google products being releases one after another...
ms: (Chortling) We'll reverse our losses! We'll BUY GOOGLE!
Papers: In a stunning REversal, ms share price rises..
(2 days later)
Papers: For the first time, a company refusing to be bought out publicly stated before journalists: FUCK YOU microsoft!
(1 hour later)
Papers: In a stunning TRAversal, Wallstreet HAMMERS the shit out of ms shares...
In other news... Dove was found to contain not one-quarter moisturizing cream, but one QUART compressed moisturizing cream...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Why didn't Google write it's own online word processor, instead of buying an ASP.NET written website ?
At least they managed to take http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://w ww.google.com/> out of beta
Writely FAQ (Emphasis added). Looks like they'll fit in just right at Google.
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it
I may be just be over paranoid. Ok I am I admit it.
If google had remained a private company then maybe I would trust them with my data. However, a slogan of 'do no evil' is simply not enough to disguise an emotionless corporation from what it is: a way for shareholders to make money over time.
Thus, I will be damned before I trust them with my data, install their browser bar on my machines, or make use of their upcoming 'free' storage. This is exactly the direction that George Orwell had the forsight to predict in 1984: the way the world's data (and history), and world communications, and networking would go.
I hope I am wrong, but the simple truth is that a court order puts all of this 'do no evil' corporation's nickers at a government's fingertips. Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson taught us that governments can never be trusted. Even the existence of this kind of private data in such a convenient package should be prevented. As I said, I'm paranoid. Are you?
-AC
Google is much beta now. Very happy.
From Mark Aliers team. Gives you a wiki with access control, wysiwyg, and all that cool wiki stuff.
Actually there is a wysiwyg wiki in Moodle now, but the new one is better:-).
Get the beta here, (get 1.6 for the wiki) :
And tell Google to hire us all, I mean shouldn't google have an LMS too?
"To be clear, Writely is still in beta..
So it will go great with the rest of Google's Betas?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Fixed your link:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/www.goo
That's pretty interesting, though. A time before Google was mainstream, back when we searched the web with AltaVista or Excite or Infoseek.
Everything starts in beta. We just tend to forget that when we use things so much.
Something like FCKeditor that I can run from anywhere?
Sure Google is a good source of intelligence...if you want to find out what the average person does in the average day. It seems really doubtful that any terrorist would use Google or other unencrypted web services to send such sensitive data. It has been shown that terrorists have adapted to not using cell phones or other easily tapped forms of communication.
Sure Google's data may be interesting to the government for different reasons, but I doubt it would be a good source of intelligence related to terrorism or military actions.
SIGFAULT
tool that translated English "internet" into German "beerdigen Netz"
For those playing at home: clue #1 | clue #2
And offer me some help also please.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
WYSIWYG is nice, but is it the most important thing for a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser? Maybe for you.
People used to local rich-text editors, such as Microsoft Word or other WYSIWYG word processors, are not going to want to have to retrain themselves to use wiki-markup or some sort of SGML or XML application to edit a document.
Compatibility and simplicity is more important for me.
Rich text editing is more compatible with skills acquired through years of use of local rich-text editors. It's also simpler for people who have used local rich-text editors to adapt to Web rich-text editing than to adapt to markup editing. Notice that Dreamweaver still sells even though Notepad is included on every Windows machine.
I wrote http://kbdocs.com/ for my own use last year, then decided to make it public. KBdocs is simple (about a 3 evening hack) : styled text editing, tags, and export for local word-processing. As an experiment, I wrote KBdocs twice: once in Java+JSPs+POJOs and once using Ruby on Rails - I bounced from one implementation to the other as an experiment comparing Rails vs. Java development. A simplified copy of my Rails rKBdocs is a little example program in a new Ruby book that I am writing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Any old editor / word processor / application: $$
VNC: Free
Cooperative whatever: Priceless
I'm sorry but our business's secret internal planning & development documents are where exactly?
I don't see too many businesses jumping on the online office suite bandwagon.
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
...seems better than that of OpenOffice?
This is definitely one step towards the right direction. (Take notes Microsoft! Here's where you get schooled!) I just hope it doesn't turn Blogger into Google Page Creator (which oddly enough for a Google application sucks).
While Writely gets settle in, whats the status on the Google Calendar?
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I knew this was going to happen... I'm glad it did too.
I've been using writely for about a month and trying to get as many friends and colleagues to as well. Writely is very cool and useful. I was concerned though that I would use it to create things that I didn't save locally and at some point writely would go out of business or start charging actual money for their service.
Now I don't have to worry (as much). Adding a google search into my documents will be extremely useful also!
I hope they start accepting new users again soon. I see you can still add collaborators even if they don't have an account, so it's sort of invite only at this point.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
God, am I enjoying this Microsoft Google war. Nasty, underhanded politics, brilliant countermoves, played across a backdrop of the whole world.
And a surprise ending...
My guess/prediction for how this all ends:
We are about a year away from a free, OSS version of Office/WebOffice that needs nothing but Tomcat and it will blow both sides away.
And the new, reconstituted and invigorated AT&T offers it as a commercial service, complete with portal/collaborative groupware (including hi def video conferencing) that runs across their secure, internal network, not the wide open internet (in reality, it's mostly the same network), and network storage at their central exchanges.
And then they announce that AT&T has bought Novell, enhanced SuSE with secret Unix projects they have been developing for 20 years, and is offering a production grade commercial Linux backed by thousands of AT&T business services experts in every neighborhood in America.
And a grid based, peer to peer, search engine with advanced NORA text mining capabilities, just so Google won't feel left out.
And, of course, their new LightSpeed (tm) video on demand network. now available in every home in America, complete with micro targeted ad's and FlexTime (tm) media sales policy, and with Web and teleworker based multimedia contact center integration.
And, riding atop a rising tide of nationalism, announce that AT&T is an American company, that has never been accused of collaborating with China, unlike Microsoft and Google, and is dedicated to making America competitive again.
I almost forgot, in the end, AT&T buys both Microsoft and Google for 10 cents a share.
Its gonna make an incredible movie someday. AT&T's deathstar like logo emerging like a sunrise behind the entire planet would be the perfect final scene.
Bet everyone forgot all about good old AT&T, right? You really thought all the RBOC's would merge and then just sit quietly by the sidelines?
I wrote a bit of an essay about this and how eventually Google can revolutionize mobile computing.
The essay is here.
Here's the intro:
I am in New York on vacation. I've never been there before and don't know where to go or what to do. I'm in the mood for a cup of coffee now, fine Italian meal tonight, and a concert tomorrow. I fire up my Nokia 770 tablet. It peers with my cell phone and pocket GPS receiver over Bluetooth, finds my location, and loads the Google Life site. I quickly tap in "coffee shop" and it suggests several coffee shops within walking distance. One is tagged with free WiFi access and has good reviews from other visitors, so I walk over.
Once settled in, I disconnect the cell phone connection and attach to the free WiFi. While sipping my triple-shot Mocha, I look over concerts playing this weekend. It seems that there are tickets still available for one of my favorite musicians. I book the tickets and add the information to my calendar, then confirm my hotel reservations, decide on a restaurant for tonight, and see if there's anything else interesting nearby. It's my lucky day: there's going to be a free Shakespeare play in the park a half mile away in about an hour.
This mocha is REALLY good. I have some time to kill: I think I'll write a positive review of this cafe.
who wants it? email me for it! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh [at @] G Mail [dot .] com and I'll send you an invite, but only if you will invite your friends/colleagues too!