Writely.com Beta - Google's Answer to Word

bahree writes "Google has launched their beta version of Writely.com. Writely is their word processor and answer to Microsoft Word. In addition to the usual editing features it includes many collaboration features, as well as the ability to save documents as PDFs and RSS feeds."

Very Impressive

[dontbflat]

The interface was very easy to use. I'm impressed. Google spreadsheets didnt impress me this much as writely does. Publish, others can edit it, save as PDF....damn its beautiful. I have no complaints. Heck, now I can use this for work to create PDF documents for my co-workers to follow. Yay for Google.....maybe powerpoint competitor next?

Links please!

[Jugalator]

What's with the lack of a direct link [writely.com]? Oh right, blogvertising. Forgot.
(check the blog's title for a laugh from the author's mental age by the way)

Re:Sweet

[mochan_s]

Seriously, since I heard about Google's infinite retention policy, I'm even afraid of using google search anymore. For the simpler stuff I use other search engines. Half the pages I go to have Google ads and by using gmail and google groups, they've got a lot of information on me.

The last last thing I want to do is use Google to edit my documents.

It hasn't happened as much yet but soon I expect to go somewhere and see Google ads with very interesting (to me) titles. Then, I'll click and spend time on it and make me feel like I need to buy this or that.

Seriously, someone has to start an open-source project to write a super-duper search engine code so that websites can use it to search themselves. It's easier to use google to search through slashdot that to use the slashdot search feature (which sucks really bad by the way).

We have open source firefox and thunderbirld, we need open source code for searching.

I'm staying away from Google calendars and google what nots from now on due to privacy concerns.

No privacy

[It doesn't come easy]

Remember, anything on someone else's server is destined to become public knowledge. It may be inadvertent, it may be because of a court order, a government investigation, a rogue employee, or because someone hacks the server. In the future world of software as a service, where your personal data is stored on someone else's computer, the privacy of that data is only as good as the technical, legal, and political environment makes it. For the US, as recent months have proven, that means there is no privacy you can count on. So be sure you never write about your questionable deductions on your income tax, or your recent affair in the Bahamas, or how you managed to carry banned items on your last airplane trip, or anything else you wouldn't want public, when using this service.

Re:One step closer...

[eln]

As a business, why would I use an office suite that requires me to (in effect) give a copy of all of my documents to another corporation, when I have a perfectly good alternative that only costs a few hundred bucks per seat? The privacy concerns for this thing are far too great to overcome the cost advantage for a business that cares about keepings its corporate secrets secret.

Re:Sweet

[rolfwind]

Anything you type down should be things that you don't mind any others seeing. This is something you might think only needs to kept in mind with gmail, but it is a good overall rule, as even regular email itself can be stored by the recipient indefinitely and be used at a later date.

As Cardinal Richelieu said:
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

Hassles now...

[bcrowell]

...or hassles later?

The reviewer says Writely might be useful because downloading and installing OOo is too much of a hassle. Hmm...what about the hassle of managing two sets of files: one on your computer's hard disk and one on the google grid? The confusion when you end up with two versions of the same file, one on your computer and one on google's grid? What about the hassle that comes when you want to edit your document, but you don't have internet access at the moment? What about the hassle when you find out it doesn't work in the browser you have installed on the machine you're using at the moment? What about the hassle when your document gets too big, and Writely's performance starts to be unacceptable?

AJAX is fundamentally a bad idea. It's an attempt to use a web browser and http for something they were never designed to do, and they can't do without browser-specific hacks on the developer's side, and breaking lots of familiar conventions on the user's side. It's also a retreat into proprietary software, at a moment when a full-featured stack of open-source apps is pretty much ready for prime time.

Re:Sweet

[mochan_s]

We're not talking about individual pieces of information here. It's a collection of information from various sources that are available to be mined.

Google will know who you talk to, where you spend your money, where you spend your time and what you talk about and do. Now, also the documents you work on.

Just from a couple of posts on slashdot, I can see you either own iPod or use iTunes extensively. I'm sure you will be very interested in a detailed review when a new iPod comes out. You said you are buying the Wii in a post. And, I'm just human. A machine can make a list of all the things you plan to buy or check out and direct you to reviews, discussions, blogs about them that makes you want to buy them more.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:One step closer...

[siriuskase]

I've seen the future and it is not private. No matter how much we may say we want privacy, we will trade it away in a heartbeat for anything thats free.

Re:One step closer...

[stony3k]

One advantage I can see is that your documents will be available anywhere you can get access to the web, which can be a pretty compelling argument. I also suspect that Google will try to sell a complete Office server to corporates, which will let them keep their data secure on their private servers while still letting their employees access these documents from the web. In fact, I'd bet that's why MS is so scared of Google.

Re:Hassles now...

[The MAZZTer]

AJAX is a good thing, as it allows for more dyanmic web-stuff. Dynamic is good. Web-stuff is good. Dynamic web-stuff is better. In my book at least. The only abuse of it at this point I've seen is that your browser freezes when you load a particularly large chunk of javascript. Some people (ahem Yahoo Mail Beta) should really slim up their AJAX apps.

Re:One step closer...

[supabeast!]

"...why would I use an office suite that requires me to (in effect) give a copy of all of my documents to another corporation, when I have a perfectly good alternative that only costs a few hundred bucks per seat?"

Any business with a competent IT staff is already putting all its documents in the hands of another corporation on a regular basis in the form of off-site backups. This just automates the process :)

Countdown to IE7 breakage

[supabeast!]

Anyone want to start a pool on what CSS/javascript features get broken or removed in future releases of IE7 as Microsoft tries to kill Writely and Google Spreadsheets?

Re:One step closer...

[Elwood P Dowd]

The reason you'd use Google everything as a small business, isn't because you'd save $<small> on MS Office. It's because you'd save $<large> on servers & an IT Department.

Would you rather set up exchange, some open source calendaring app, or goocal?

Me too.

So you're right, it's cost vs secrecy, but the cost savings is gigantic.

CSS and printing

[gradedcheese]

The trouble with rulers and other real-world dimention stuff (for printing) in web applications seems to be that the CSS features (http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_ref_print.asp) that handle them are not supported in the majoy browsers. The web application has, thus, little to no control over how the document will be printed and how dimentions, page breaks, and margins will be handled. I assume that, for those reasons, there's no point in including a ruler or the like. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Re:One step closer...

[pchan-]

Any business with a competent IT staff is already putting all its documents in the hands of another corporation on a regular basis in the form of off-site backups.

Your off-site backups are not encrypted? Why not? You may want to rethink the comment about competent IT.

Shouldn't there be some penalty

[xigxag]

for people who link to their own poorly written blog without stating such in the summary??

Anyway, FWIW, CNET wrote a real review of the Writely Beta a couple of months ago [cnet.com]. Writely seems to be missing something very important, unless I didn't notice it in my perusal of the article. It's all very well and good that access to the documents is password protected. But what they also need is for the documents to be optionally autosaved in a strongly encrypted format, so that even if someone gets access to your online folder, they can't (easily) read what's there.

Google seems to think they are miraculously immune to privacy snafus. I know the company is run by some very smart guys, but everybody makes mistakes. This is not an area to which they should be giving short shrift.

Re:Sweet

[Zelbinian]

Sure, they'll use the money for advertising

And by money I mean data. One in the same nowadays, right?

Is it just me?

[JustNiz]

...or does anyone else also hate the idea of having private documents stored on a server rather than (only) on your own PC?

Re:Sweet

[mochan_s]

I think you've fallen into the trap of anthromorphosizing Google.

Google isn't a guy who lives down the street and has a specific character and you can depend on him to hold on to your secrets.

The leaders of the google has a policy and all but in reality it has stockholders and is traded on the stock market. People can retire, be fired or replaced but Google is still there.

Saying something like I trust Google doesn't make sense. If there is an oppertunity to sucessfully exploit for money then you can safely bet Google will do it eventually.

I remember Microsoft in the early days. Everyone considered Bill Gates a genuis. A reporter even asked him if he thought he should have gone to Physics instead of starting Microsoft? People thought he was so brilliant and genuis. It didn't take long for Microsoft to exploit their powers and become evil since no-one could do anything about it.

Re:One step closer...

[Viceice]

But think of the potential! Instead of free storage on Googles servers, they could sell companies a network device that stores ALL the companies documents on the device. and everybody could work from there...

Then they could sell a smaller version to home users, you simply plug it into your router/switch at home and suddenly you can work on the same stuff anywhere on your network, and potentially anywhere in the world! Plus it uses the same storage system as Gmail, so no longer will you have documents scattered all over multiple machines with multiple revisions, they will now be in one place and searchable with the powerful search engine for which Google is famed.

If they'd make that i'll ditch office and buy it today.

Yeah, it's free, but big deal.

[sdnoob]

The way that most (home users especially) buy computers, they already come with a word processor of some sort bundled with all the other crap the OEM (HP, Dell, etc) sticks on the system. It's nearly impossible to buy a major manufacturer's system without all the preloaded junk, and often times you spend the same or more on the stripped down version. (Yes, you can 'roll your own' system, but *MOST* people don't do that, nor do they know how.) So, most home users have either Works or Word Perfect (Mac's have their own), which is more than adequate for virtually all their text document writing needs. Those that don't have something preloaded can install OpenOffice.org or even Abiword for a free word processor.

Big business, with the typical big-business IT strategy has already chosen (most likely) Microsoft Office to standardize on. The few forward-thinking organizations are already using something like OpenOffice.org.

Many business users of Microsoft Office have 'install at home' rights to their business' license of Office, so those folks can use Office at home as well as at work.

With a 500k maximum document size, limited feature set, and all the privacy concerns that go along with using a Google-owned web application -- the only people that can really get some use out of Writely is people with blogs who can post directly one of the six compatible blogging sites (since blogs are typically published to the public, less privacy issues). And still, you're giving Google your login information for the blog (another privacy concern), so I'd think it's only a viable tool for Google's own Blogger.com users (since Google's already got your login information there).

And, not to forget, a web-based app requires web access of a sufficient speed to use -- and not everybody is hooked up to a full-time high speed internet connection. "Little Tommy couldn't hand in his homework because the internet was down" could become the new "My dog ate my homework", and with reliability problems some broadband providers have, there might actually be some truth to the excuse.

The speculation of a Google-box appliance that big business can install on their own LAN, without the privacy concerns of using a Google web-based application sounds like it *could* be a serious contender against Microsoft Office, but it needs to be a complete and integrated solution suite, and even then it will likely be a tough sell. Google's got a lot of work to do before they're ready for that.

I think it's primarily a traffic generating gimmick for Google (until the above business server materializes). People will use it, but not necessarily need the few unique features it has, simply because "it's there" and they've already been hooked into some other Google gimmick or gadget (mail, calendar, talk, etc).

Re:What?!

[aussie_a]

I wish Google would code to the standard rather then standard to the browser :( They're strong enough that they could force all browsers (except possibly IE) to actually be standard compliant.

Re:One step closer...

[aussie_a]

Most businesses don't care about keeping their data secret from third parties they deal with as they often use Windows XP with an internet connection enabled, which gives Microsoft the ability to look through your computer and data whenever they feel like it.

I'd feel safer giving my data to Google over Microsoft. Doesn't mean I'd feel safe though.

Re:Price is the least of their differences....

[Anonymous Coward]

The private key could actually be nothing more than an hashed version of my google account password

Uh, no. Even ignoring the fact that you can't just turn any old bits into a private key (there needs to be some structure to them i.e. primes+modulus or a discrete log inverse), there aren't nearly enough bits of information in your password to be half-way secure: you're drastically shrinking the keyspace right off.

it'll be used by people who need it

[marleyboy]

First, let's ask ourselves, who might be using this sort of software? Probably not Dad, as the office will set him up with the requisite Microsoft software for their environment. The kids though, they'll be at school, their friend's house, maybe a library if you're lucky. They'll have cell(smart?)-phones that let them moblog [nokia.co.uk] to their myspace or livejournal account. Google's deployment of their homepage services to mobile phones [google.com] is the most revealing as it's a step in a direction towards a different content distribution system.

Writely and Google Spreadsheet (Will we see presentation software soon?) will let students use any computer to edit files. Losing a USB key (or hard drive) with your midterm papers is a students nightmare. The very privacy that we are concerned about when it comes to our porn is relinquished when it comes ensuring we will never lose our critical data. This online software will let students edit papers wherever they are so long as they have a computer and internet. Watch for Google's emerging interests in putting computers in the hands of students, as well as the hands of people who cannot afford them.

As well, the timing of the purchase of MySpace ad rights with the Writely registration release and the nearing school year is circumspect. Google is targeting the largest demographics it can reach for the most impact.

The real question to ask is, what's next?

Re:What?!

[l3v1]

but pointing out a flaw in one of their products is not trolling

I don't think telling you that my product supports this and this and that, and telling you that it doesn't yet support these and those yet, is a flaw in my product. It might be lack of features on my part, it might be lack of features in your browsers you would like to use with my product, still, when I tell you in advance what it does and what it doesn't, then I really think you shouldn't label it as being flawed.

Re:Sweet

[jez9999]

It hasn't happened as much yet but soon I expect to go somewhere and see Google ads with very interesting (to me) titles. Then, I'll click and spend time on it and make me feel like I need to buy this or that.

I'm sorry, but that sounds really stupid. What are you saying exactly? You're scared that you're too weak to resist buying something if they market it to you really well, and it's really appropriate for you? Therefore you don't want them to advertise? You're in control of your buying decisions; you can't go saying that others can't try to influence you in a free society.

Re:So have I

[NDPTAL85]

I love how arrogant Scroogle's "about us" page is: "It's time to stop pretending that Google's revenue model is anything more than a temporary bubble, and it's time for Google to start developing more socially-responsible sources of income. Showing Google's results without the ads amounts to more public-interest advocacy. It says that the web spam situation is intolerable. "

Like some outside organization has a right to tell a company how to run its business. Why is my socialism alarm going off? In any case, up above that paragraph they mention that Google retaining information is bad because it might get subpoaned someday. How about just not doing anything worth getting investigated over? Isn't that a good idea too?

Seriously, do geeks have real privacy concerns or is there just like perhaps an aspergers/autistic based higher level of paranoia about piracy among the technically inclined set?

Re:One step closer...

[oscartheduck]

I can see how google will follow the server end of things and eat up the Office market, but I don't see why they'd go out of their way to discuss Ubuntu as a replacement for Windows when they don't even support linux on a lot of their applications. There's no reason to think of the last step besides wishful thinking.

However, it *is* a good possibility that people like you and me will be able to use the no-more-Office argument as a great reason to go from Windows to Linux at the next budget meeting after we start using G-Offfice. We shouldn't dismiss how much financial leverage that would give us in the argument to switch.

Microsoft Word Hard to Replace

[KidSock]

Is anyone really going to use this for anything but making "Lost Dog" signs? In a corporate environment or even if you're just a small business there's simply no replacement for Microsoft Word. Can your word processor do the following things:

Does it have a concept of "styles" where you can select a style or select content and apply a style to it?
Can you insert footnotes that are automatically numbered properly? If you delete one, are they re-numbered properly?
Can you have header and footer text?
Can you designate text as a TOC item and rebuilt the TOC at will? Can you enter alternate text for a TOC element that should appear only in the TOC and not have to change the text it's linked to?
Can you apply a table style easily without tweeking individual attributes of the table?
Can you copy and paste a table from a spreadsheet into the document?
Can you script the document such that information is retrieved from a database?

In fact, to get me to stop using Word I think the replacement would have to provide more than the above Word features (e.g. apply an XSLT template). Note, Word 2003+ reads and writes XML pretty well now (and it's not just base64 encoded chunks of binary ole specific stuff). I wish, oh I wish, there was a replacement for Microsoft Word. But it just ain't so.

Re:The price of not having your software freedom.

[whoop]

You are free to write your own word processor for your own use.

This is getting ridiculous, even for Slashdot. They have a service, use it if you want, don't if you don't want it. It's pointless to go on and on (though you will) about how it doesn't have X feature. This isn't going to be the final word processor ever. You can still use Word, Open Office, vim, emacs, etc. if those suit your needs.

Do all of you stand in front of an 8-year-old's lemonade stand and complain to them for hours about how much you want to have an orange juice?