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.
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).
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.
In the future, co-founder Aaron Iba says that they’ll have features for exporting documents into text files, Word format, etc. Eventually they’ll offer businesses premium features for a fee, like controlled access, private URLs, etc. They’ll even offer non-hosted version that companies can install on their own servers for higher security.
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.
A screencast is here.
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.
Patent pending synchronization algorithm? …
Hmm…guess you have never heard of SubEthaEdit…
Yep, just going to say exactly the same thing.
SubEthaEdit’s been around for ages, offering exactly the same feature…
You all forgot to note that SubEthaEdit is Mac OS X only and it costs $38.00.
looks awfully useful but ugly as hell, they need an Apple designer to put some of their magic touch to it, badly.
they have just ported subethaedit to the web
http://gobby.0&...15;539.de/trac/ ?
But whatever, Google docs is competing with office.live.com , not gobby/subethaedit/etc. I keep forgetting to put techcrunch on hosts ban.
I think the scope of this application is too narrow. The question is… How many people really need to collaborate on a document from remote locations at the same moment? In my experience.. not many. Maybe a little ahead of it’s time.
> Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn’t been able to do…
Really? Do you think that Google hasn’t been *able* to do this? That’s not a technical wonder. ICQ and Telnet clients solved that decades ago. Google Docs doesn’t do real-time updates for conscious, designed reasons: network efficiency, user friendliness… Real-time updates is a special case need, not a general purpose need for an online word processor (Docs).
Somebody try this with me.
http://etherpad.com/v6s9iKow1A
I think accessibility is more important than real-time access. I find online collaborating to be somewhat inconvenient especially with notes and docs.
I agree with all the comments so far.
They totally missed the point. Real-time collaboration is not a need. Sharing is, and Google as already solved that.
Have you ever (or do you want) to real-time collaborate on a spec document of 100 pages?
Writing requires thinking and organization, not a mess like real-time collaboration. It’s not a racing game.
Other software doing just that already exist and did they solved something? Nope.
It doesn’t do formatting unlike Google Docs, but I guess it’s good to know about it in case I ever need to do real-time collaboration on some text.
So what’s going to happen to the startup when Google decides to add similar features to their offering? Dead is what I say.
Haven’t you heard of Google Video?
I disagree that this is designed for a narrow use case of people in remote locations. Nearly everyday, I am in a meeting where one document needs to come out, and yet everyone takes notes independently, or we have one scribe and slowly agree on everything in serial and by consensus. A program like etherpad would be a great time saver at meetings, and also might democratize comments away from the loudest voice at the meeting.
Reminds me of HyLighter: https://www.hylighter.com
I have no idea whether this collaborative docs service is better than google docs … but I’m glad to see it nonetheless. Innovation is driven by competition. Google has been slow to upgrade the free capabilities of google docs. I’m all for for them to be pushed.
Hello,
For the reference, SubEthaEdit was developed at the same time as MoonEdit, MoonEdit uses different algorithm (probably similar to this one), SubEthaEdit is based on scientific research in this field, so I it’s ridiculous that they want to patent it and claim it is something new. Gobby is a MoonEdit clone.
Try MoonEdit movies on youtube, also humanized.com about MoonEdit and MoonEdit.com – it’s free!
Looks like the TC crowd is pounding it with traffic. The site seemed to be down earlier and now it says it’s under construction.
Well, I get on a lot of teleconference calls with a bunch of my colleagues and we are all taking notes. I think something like this is perfect for such a scenario.
“The network seems slow. Waiting to hear back from the server…” After about 10-15 minutes of usage, this is what I get.
If they leaned this product into an IDE for programming, this would be perfect for doing remote team programming (extreme programming).
They should incorporate an automatic versioning system so that all updates can be rolled back to whatever version you’d like and/or you can see, or even replay back any of the edits (like a movie).
“…so that all updates can be rolled back to whatever version you’d like…” – it has been done in moonedit, ages ago, just try it.
Very cool
But I don’t know about the blanket statement “far more useful” than a wiki. As someone else said, they are different use cases. Anyway, it’s a sweet app. Nice work, guys.
the industry that desperately needs this is law. and maybe diplomacy.
You all need to chill out. This is a great little piece of JavaScript.
This is not a narrow use case at all: just think of it as whiteboarding, not document editing. Tools like these — http://www.synchroedit.com is another — are incredibly useful when what you’d really like to do is get everyone in a room and pass the dry-erase markers back and forth but cannot because of geographic dispersion.
When come to security and privacy issue of the document, then we have to find better solution. Or Etherpad could enhance about it.
hibernater works great too, i need solutions more on saving and resuming my work easily, seldom sychronizing.
props etherpad team! impressive work!
what about images? if this had images it would be so awesome
when you first get to the page there should be a popup that asks for your name. that would make it even better when people join.
If you need more than a collaborative editor, you should watch this video http://www.vimeo.com/2242522, it’s a social IDE.
they should have called this proggie orgypad….
This site is awesome:
http://etherpad.com/rv5gTCC6Wn
Just viewed the words “changes are seen live by everyone else” and stopped reading. That’s it. Brilliant. All I can say is, “I am available and willing to help out.” Damn. It is about time! Kudos to the Etherpad team.
No doubt dude. Etherpad totally ROCKS.
jess
http://www.privacy.mx.tc
totally useless.. i dont know why these garbage companies get funding
Cant beat Google Docs anyhow
I think it’s cool that real-time shared editing is catching on, on the web. As others before me have pointed out, the algorithms behind this are neither secret nor black magic. Earlier this year, I have given a tech talk at Google on this very topic
http://www.yout...h?v=GfeUCT-tRJQ
There is also a screencast on vimeo, showcasing the real-time shared editing work I did for Eclipse
http://www.vimeo.com/1195398
Despite me thinking, that their webified application is interesting and will serve as a handy tool, I must admit, I don’t quite understand the reasoning behind backing something like this.
It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days for either Google (or MS) to implement this feature for Google Docs (respectively whatever MS has online) and by that make any such effort by external companies more or less worthless.
I do understand that such reasoning should not keep anyone from playing around with/implementing something like this on their own. I just don’t think it warrants the assumption that this could serve as a fundamental differentiator for a long time.
this is cool. but i prefer keeping to the old MS Office way of manging and collaborating on information rather than the new fanlged solutions.
Awesome? . . . .man it’s been a sad day for the front page.