Zach over at NoSheep! wrote an article about Web 2.0 and the Long Tail that intrigued me. That article linked to another article by Tim O’Reilly that discusses various services that are getting heavy notice on their innovations on the web. One has really caught my eye….Writely.
The gist of this application is that its a Word Processor online! You can type documents (much like you can with MS Word or OpenOffice.org) through a web interface. The application has an auto-save, hot keys, exporting to HTML and Word, HTML editing and the ability to publish to blogs! Oh, and the sweet part about it…you tag your documents and can distribute them with other users. I teach a course at Plymouth State University and the last quiz that I administered was typed up using Writely. I’ve done a few other documents since then and it seems extremely slick.
That doesn’t mean its perfect. Writely is still in Beta (as most Web 2.0 apps are) and I have a few issues with it so far. When you export a Writely document to Word, it works but the formatting looks a little off. Also, there are a number of features that are provided in a full-fledged word processing application that are not yet provided in Writely. But thats what the beta is! Check it out, use it, make suggestions.
If you haven’t checked it out…do so. It’ll be worth your while.
http://www.writely.com/
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4 responses to “Writely”
[…] I recently discovered a web based document or content editor called Writely. Matt at Bork Web tried it out and gave me his opinions on it so I decided to take a stab at it as well. It is a Web 2.0 application that intends to replace Microsoft Word. I consder this similar to the way Gmail completely changed what we expect out of web-based email clients. Now I want all content editing to work just like Writely. I’m actually writing this blog post in Writely, since they have the ability to post content directly to a blog using the standard blogging APIs. If this works out, it will certainly replace all reliance I had on Ecto. […]
Interesting you mention this. Google is going to collaborate with Sun. Many speculate that it will be to attack microsoft on the office productivity suite front:
Industry sources have speculated that Google is interested in offering more applications, such as a Web-based office productivity suite, to compete with its rival in Redmond, Washi.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/10/03/HNgooglesun_1.htm
I just tried out Writely. It’s a good proof of concept. But I’m not sure you can extricate the tool from the medium in which it sits. I made a document on there, and the first thing I wanted to do was blog it. So then I thought, writely exists better as a productivity suite within a blogging system, not as a standalone productivity app.
In other words, I consider it a challenge to get people using a web-based office app for something other than a web-based collaborative task. So I’m skeptical whether Google or Writely could displace MS Word.
Could they innovate and open up a new application space? For sho.
[…] Windows Live supposedly expects to have an online Microsoft Office Suite that will be paid for by using ads rather than money from my wallet (sounds like Writely) […]
[…] Back in October I was extremely excited about Writely. It has been a few months and my love for the word processing application grows each time I use it. I wrote: The gist of this application is that its a Word Processor online! You can type documents (much like you can with MS Word or OpenOffice.org) through a web interface. The application has an auto-save, hot keys, exporting to HTML and Word, HTML editing and the ability to publish to blogs! Oh, and the sweet part about it…you tag your documents and can distribute them with other users. […]