Etherpad, a smaller-scale, and more lightweight iteration of Google’s new “Wave” product, has many features similar to those that can be seen in Wave. When viewing a “pad” collaboration, text from different authors is highlighted with their respective author color, many people can edit a document simultaneously, and as with Wave, a “time slider” feature is available to replay the events that led up to the final document. One difference, however, is that Etherpad is geared more toward document collaboration than being a pseudo IM/Email collaboration client.
Just today Google acquired AppJet, the company behind Etherpad, bringing its employees onto its wave team. Not much is known about their new jobs yet, but most likely they’ll be working on integrating the document collaboration features of Etherpad into the powerful thread-styled interface of Wave.
Etherpad was around for a decent amount of time before Google Wave was introduced to the public, so it was essentially the pioneer for online live collaboration tools. However, the simple fact that they’re not Google yielded them a slightly smaller user base. Despite that fact, they did have some very fast, powerful, and intuitive software running that obviously caught Google’s attention – that’s a feat of its own!
For current Etherpad Pro users, documents will remain editable until March 31, 2010. During that time, there will also be an option to export every single pad into a downloadable ZIP file. After March 31, 2010, the service will be terminated and any pads stored on their servers, deleted. For free users, current pads will remain accessible and editable until said date. New pads, however, cannot be created from this time on.
The combinations of dozens of great minds and already-established technologies should make the final product just that much more “awesome”. I can’t wait to see it! Let’s just hope Google doesn’t repeat history and pull a Microsoft – that is – earn a fancy lawsuit for monopolizing the market.
Read: [Etherpad]
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