Writely an online wordprocessor with some collaboration features, which we reviewed back in September 2005 has become Google’s newest acquisition.

Jen Mazzon from the Google Writely Team explains:

… everyone told us it was crazy to try and give people a way to access their documents from anywhere — not to mention share documents instantly, or collaborate online within their browsers. But that’s exactly what we did. And since we launched the Writely beta in August 2005, many thousands of people have registered, and all of them came through word of mouth (and blog).

Originally Writely was in closed beta, then they opened the beta and now it’s closed again as they migrate to Google. My original user/pass still works so I got back in to take another peek and see how things have come along. You can see the Writely document I created and chose to share publically here. There are a couple prompts before making the document public warning and asking if you really, really want to make it public.

Return to Writely thoughts
- you can optionally post your writely entries to only one blog at this time, multiple blogs not supported. Curiously, they have text under the API that says: “Movable Type supports the most features, Blogger the least.” Wonder if/when that will be changed?
- during beta there are no limits to the number of documents that can be stored, but there’s a 500k limit to each individual document and each embedded image can be up to 2 MB
- each document can be shared with up to 50 people
- Sam from Writely stopped by in September to address my concerns about the privacy of the RSS feeds and they have since modified that practice so that Writely users must enable that option:

So, anyone using these sites could find your feeds and be able to see the document title and who changed what and when. When we realized that might happen, we immediately blocked private documents from the RSS feeds in order to protect people’s private information.

- They have a beta meter in the upper corner which as of this writing sits at 59%.
- documents can be tagged
- documents and images can be emailed into your Writely account by using a special key

Everybody who didn’t see Writely back in September on their launch is trying to check this one out now to see what they might have missed. It’s nice when you get bought by Google because you can enjoy two launch periods. That first launch when TechCrunch mentions you and the crowd of techophiles scampers for your beta and then again when you publically launch and then again if you are bought by Google. Er, wait, that’s right, they didn’t have an official public launch, did they? Doh!

Related quotes that struck me
Om Malik who was the first to pick up on the acquisition rumor yesterday has a graphic comparing side by side Microsoft Office vs. Google Office. Problems with Om’s comparisons though. Google Base doesn’t compete with Access nor even SQL Server. Does Google Base work with Pocket PCs or Smart Phones for storing data locally? No. Pocket Access does. Spreadsheet application from Google? None yet. No Powerpoint killer. The only comparison that can be made is Outlook to Gmail, but even that’s weak because what is really happening is a lot of people are using Gmail as a backup tool and pulling in all their mail into Outlook or other POP3 email clients.
Some folks, Mathew Ingram among them, seem to see Writely has a replacement for Word. Mathew writes: “For me, having used Writely.com to plan the Web 2.0 conference I’m helping to organize in Toronto this spring, Writely is definitely good enough. And if you combine it with something like Gdrive, then the relevance of Microsoft’s Office becomes less and less compelling.”
Paul Kedrosky on Writely: “It’s a fine tool, and I use it now and then, but a Word replacement it is not (yet). Sure, it could yet turn out to be disruptive, which would be great, but this game is far, far from over.”
Dion Hinchcliffe: “So, though Sergei Brin has previously disavowed the development of a Google Office suite, it’s patently clear that Google is ready to enter the space now.”
Woodrow: “This move was neither unexpected … nor particularly Earth-shattering.”
Nathan Weinberg: “Considering Writely would fit in perfectly with Google’s platform (Gmail/Calendar/Page Creator) as part of their growing web-based office suite, I’m hoping Writely will continue to grow.”
Techdirt: “It’s interesting that their first move is to actually shut the system down for new users (existing accounts still work, as far as I can see), as they move the system over to Google’s architecture. It will be worth watching just how long this takes, and if it will cause any problems.”
Silicon Beat: “This is another example of the big three … swooping in to buy cool companies before venture capitalists can even invest. Are VCs getting shut out from making money on the best Web 2.0 features? Beginning to seem so.”
Pete Cashmore with the cliched Google logo generator puts Writely’s name in it and writes: “[Google has] finally admitted that they can’t build everything in-house; Google isn’t as arrogant as some of us thought.”
Basement.org: “Bring on the $200 Linux appliance! Google’s gonna take care of the rest…for free…for now…or something.”
Tony at Clickable Culture: “I’m all for ridding myself of the Microsoft monopoly, but not if that means running into the arms of a Google monopoly. At least Microsoft doesn’t have its paws on my personal documents.”
Stowe Boyd recants a story from a VC: “Apparently, the VC had been flown in by Google to a big confab where Google made it clear that they wanted to buy teams of people who had developed cool stuff.”
Phil Sims / Squash: “I reckon Google knows that Writely and other like products out there are for the most part crap. As Writely exists now, it’s a niche solution with little scope for generating significant revenues.”

My thoughts
This acquisition gives Gmail users a more comprehensive word processor online, nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a major disruptive event as some are making it out to be.

Please put down the hype pipe.

It’s not going to take a bite out of Microsoft Word. Why? People still aren’t online everywhere all the time. If we were, then Writely might make more sense, but the reality is that still hotels are charging $10+ per day to access the internet, not everybody has EVDO and even if they did, coverage isn’t everywhere, and many rural areas still are without broadband. You can tell Joe Hard Worker to use Writely in the sticks when he is on an appointment in somebody’s house and needs to work on a Word document with no internet access. Doh!

Does Writely actually supplement Word? Perhaps. Those who are calling this Google’s significant step into Microsoft Office territory are mistaken. This might actually help Microsoft Office because people can still create their documents there and then import into Writely. But can Writely export into Word.doc?

If Google is hoping to move the chains on their stock by buying Writely, which is an ok wordprocesser that I used once for testing and only returned five months later to edit that worthless demo document to write this, then all I can say is good luck.

This doesn’t get me excited about buying any more GOOG stock and I doubt investors will see the Writely acquisition as any kind of significant threat to Microsoft. And even if some do, Microsoft is already building up Live so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a Writely clone already in the hopper, something that works with Word and does more than Writely can ever do on the desktop without juice. Wait, they already have that.

It’s called OneNote.

Also, let’s not forget the document features that OneNote already provides. You can work on and optionally share documents over the internet. It’s a feature some don’t know about and if Microsoft could make it so this would work with non-OneNote users — say via a free OneNote Live program — then they would land a blow to Writely right away.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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