[ether pad]
So I had a little play around with it and my first question was "how is etherpad different from google docs?" After a bit more research and reading of the faqs it seems a few other beta users have wondered this very question and the creators are quick to point out that "No." EtherPad is different from googledocs:
"Google Docs is a suite of products that do many things, from word processing to spreadsheets to document management. One thing that Google Docs does not do is real-time collaborative text editing. We think this is an important use case, so we built EtherPad with real-time collaboration as the focus.
For example, with Google Docs it takes about 5 to 15 seconds for a change to make its way from your keyboard to other people's screens. Imagine if whiteboards or telephones had this kind of delay! In contrast, the EtherPad infrastructure is built to carry your every keystroke at the speed of light, limited only by the time it takes electrons to travel over a wire (such as an "ethernet" cable)."
The aspect of real-time updates is something I've noticed first-hand when working with people on google docs (hi Sue! hi Kate!) and EtherPad lets you see changes/revisions/additions as they happen. This has interesting possibilities for classroom use too.Thanks to my brother for the tip.
Labels: google, new media, research, social media, social software, web 2.0
posted by Jess @ 00:41
2 comments
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jess @ jesslaccetti.co.uk
2 Comments:
Hi Jess, this doesn't correspond with my experience. I've worked on googledocs simultaneously with other people and see the changes appear live on screen as we write. Happy to experiment on that with you! Take a look at this too http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KpcgRlXe40k
I haven't tried Etherpad yet but will be curious to see whether it does the one thing Gdocs won't do, which is show everyone's text in separate colours, as per the image you give here.
hi sue,
interesting. when i use google docs synchronously i do need to refresh the page to see my collaborator's comments or...wait patiently as it does seem to take a little bit to appear on screen. perhaps that's down to bandwidth or something but etherpad did feel much quicker and it does show everyone's text highlighted in different colours which makes it quite easy to skim through and see who said what.
and, from their site:
" * Google Docs are cumbersome to share with other people. It requires sending an email, and all collaborators must have a Google Docs account. With EtherPad, you just copy and paste a link, no emails or accounts required.
* Google Docs does not highlight who typed what, so with more than 2 editors, things get chaotic and confusing very quickly. EtherPad makes things clear by highlighting each author's contributions with a unique background color.
* One of the most basic operators for editing text is "undo." In Google Docs, while collaborating, you lose undo history whenever someone else makes a change. EtherPad supports infinite undos and ensures that every operation is forever undo-able, even in the presence of other editors."
the infinite undos would def. come in handy too.
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