Buzzword - Adobe's new online word editor
At MAX this week, we had announced that we signed an agreement to acquire Virtual Ubiquity, which publishes an online word processor called Buzzword. I signed up for the beta to take a look.
It's still a bit rudimentary compared to desktop word processors, but for an online tool with built in collaboration features, it's really sweet.
Here is what I like about it:
- It's Flash based - so pretty much everyone with a browser can access, view, edit, and print the content. No need to get special players or viewers.
- UI - it's cool. I love how intuitive it is - menus slide in and out and tool tips for the entire toolbar show up.
- Speed - it's extremely fast to work with it and save files.
- Sharing - at any time, you can simply share a doc with someone else and when that person is viewing it, you can see it. Real time collaboration!
- Commenting - fully built in and visible to the other person as soon as you save.
- Import and export RTF and DOC files - so you can easily get started.
- History - it's easy to go back to a previous version.
- Lists - working with lists has probably never been easier: there is a skip paragraph option so you don't have to go through a 5 clicks to remove a bullet or number and include the paragraph in the list item.
- PDF support is announced as the first step of integrating the tool into our offerings.
Features I'd like to see in the future:
- I am so used to styles - definitely something I want to see in the future.
- Color picker (Adobe Captivate has one and I use it all the time).
- Ability to insert .swf files - you can already do that with PDF documents.
- The history seems to go into the wrong direction ...? Usually any timeline goes from left to right ...
Overall it's a nifty new tool worth checking out in the Web 2.0 world.
PS: I am on the board of cfive which provides funding for the Innovative Video in Education (iVIE) awards. We are still working on updating the website. Amazing program - check it out.
