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Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Getting to know Writely
Following up on my recent attempt to explain Web 2.0 (What is Web 2.0 and why should we care), I signed up for an account at Writely. Tag line: Simple & secure document collaboration and publishing.
As of this writing, it's still in the beta phase of testing. The beta meter currently shows 49%.
Writely is something between a word processor and a WSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor. Since the software resides entirely online, there's no need to download anything to work with it. However, a browser is required. I'm using Firefox 1.5 as my browser.
In addition to creating documents, it accepts uploads of Word documents, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or text. It does not work with the WordPerfect format. However, with a little file conversion, WordPerfect users should have no trouble uploading and downloading documents created and edited in Writely.
Support includes help pages, forums, and a blog from the founders of Writely.
As to the cost to use Writely, from the about page:
How much does Writely cost?
During the beta period, Writely is free.
What will it cost in the future?
Our hope is to have the basic service be free, with some extra features requiring a reasonable subscription fee*. We will also be charging license fees to corporations and partners.
*Note: where we add extra features like this to the site, we indicate that they will be premium in the future with a little $.
Finally, and probably most important, security:
Who can see my documents?
Only who you invite, via e-mail. See Collaborating, below, for more details.
How secure are my documents?
Very! We take security very seriously. A layered security architecture ensures that only people you authorize can view or modify a document.
Can anyone find my documents by searching for them on Google?
No! Robots and spiders can't get to your documents unless you 1) publish them to the world and 2) reference them from pages outside of Writely.
Writely doesn't indicate what technology it uses to make the documents secure. Remember, as with any computer system, compromise is always a concern. Law offices and anyone who is bound by law or ethics to keep their documents secret should take this into consideration.
Just as important as security is reliability. What about downtime? We don't know yet if Writely will be accessible every minute of every day. Even the biggest and best web sites experience hiccups. This is in no way meant as a criticism of Writely, but being able to get to ones documents at any time is a major concern.
Okay. Enough with the fine print. On to working with Writely, which I'll discuss in an upcoming entry.
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