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The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

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Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#51

Post by kleevr »

aaroniba wrote: post #28
jwb119 wrote: post #9

Great site. Interesting biz related side topic: Have sites like this trended too far towards the policy of "no account required"? This is a service I actually want to sign up for and I wasn't able to find a sign up link after looking around for 30 seconds or so. Surely there would be some benefit to EtherPad to have me sign up for an actual account and collect data on me.. which in this case I am happy to have them d…

We're thinking of charging for having accounts.

This might be a silly question, but could anyone recommend a solid resource on case studies of fairly recent startups?

...wait a second, a stupid detector is going off in my head, let me check something real quick... (googles "founders at work")... well that's the one -- curiously I hadn't read it's synopsis before...

I would still be interested in further reading suggestions though if other books come to mind.?

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#52

Post by gojomo »

I'd been kicking around the idea of doing something like this in Javascript for a while. My working title was 'TimeWriter', but I never got beyond some notes on delta formats and UI, and discussions with friends.

There's lots more potential in the graphical dimension: sliders, text color/weight that varies with age/volatility; timelines of activity (gross keystrokes or net adds/deletes) that go by either keystroke-time or clock-time.

Also an interesting thing to think about: how to build an efficient text index that can find any word or phrase that was ever present, even momentarily (or as the prefix of another word mid-typing) -- and plot its positions and lifespans.

Of course with smallish works just replaying every tick and grepping every frame could work. However, my initial inspiration for the TimeWriter idea was hosting an indefinitely lengthy personal journal. Each day, you could edit with abandon, knowing that instant search could find any fragmentary thought (and surrounding context) you'd ever jotted. The freedom of a clean sheet of paper, whenever necessary, with the confidence of perpetual perfect recall, when desired.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#53

Post by blackguardx »

pg wrote: post #48
aak wrote: post #41

What exactly about this makes it the most surprising thing you've seen in two months?

Being able to watch how I write. It's like seeing a photograph of oneself for the first time. I had no idea how often I restarted sentences, for example. There's other stuff I want to see that should be even more interesting. When it's replaying, I want to be able to see characters that make it into the final version in one color, and others in another. Then I'll be able to tell when I'm writing well and when I'm wri…

I tend to frequently restart sentences as well. I have found that pushing myself to quickly get an extremely rough draft down makes me more efficient. This rough draft helps me focus my thoughts in the beginning on what I want to say. I can come back later and change how I say it.

If I don't do this--and I frequently don't--I find my output grinds to a halt with my brain both creating and editing sentences at the same time.

What are your thoughts on this?

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#54

Post by sayrer »

pg wrote: post #48
aak wrote: post #41

What exactly about this makes it the most surprising thing you've seen in two months?

Being able to watch how I write. It's like seeing a photograph of oneself for the first time. I had no idea how often I restarted sentences, for example. There's other stuff I want to see that should be even more interesting. When it's replaying, I want to be able to see characters that make it into the final version in one color, and others in another. Then I'll be able to tell when I'm writing well and when I'm wri…

Good for Etherpad. Features that enable narcissism often do very well. :)

However, I have to admit that I think such playback would make me a better writer.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#57

Post by axod »

olefoo wrote: post #50
pg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different when it's built into a generic, web-based editor. Imagine the difference between a) telling students to install a keylogger, write an essay with it turned on, then submit the essay plus the logs, and then the teacher figuring out how to replay the logs, versus b) telling students to write their essay at etherpad.com, they submit the url, teacher clicks on "replay." As for the matter of students being o…

> because all the apps are moving online. I think that pendulum has almost reached the end of it's arc. There are a number of trends that are starting to pull in the opposite direction. From concerns about privacy and security to the proliferation of mobile computing, intermittent disconnection from the cloud has it's uses. Tools like Google Gears and the continued blurring of the line between desktop applications an…

"There are a number of trends that are starting to pull in the opposite direction. From concerns about privacy and security"

Ironically I think it's the tech crowd/geeks (us) who are most resistant to webapps. We can see the privacy,security,reliability issues. The average users however, cannot. They're already embracing webapps.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#58

Post by jyothi »

pg wrote: post #34
unalone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredible thing to watch! Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? What a great way of bringing attention to a start-up: make something that's inherently fascinating due to features. This is unlike anything online I've seen before because the functionality just doesn't exist anywhere else. So it's a great thing to watch and it also tells you about the service. I like that you keep constantly…

Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? Anything you write with it now you will be able to play back like this soon. Etherpad is already saving all the keystrokes. They just haven't released the player yet. (This is a one-off prototype.)

That is going to be a killer.

However, it should be somewhere hidden and available only if people really want to be able to replay. Else it is going to be an over kill on their servers.

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#59

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #34
unalone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredible thing to watch! Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? What a great way of bringing attention to a start-up: make something that's inherently fascinating due to features. This is unlike anything online I've seen before because the functionality just doesn't exist anywhere else. So it's a great thing to watch and it also tells you about the service. I like that you keep constantly…

Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? Anything you write with it now you will be able to play back like this soon. Etherpad is already saving all the keystrokes. They just haven't released the player yet. (This is a one-off prototype.)

[deleted]

Re: The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

#60

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #34
unalone wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredible thing to watch! Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? What a great way of bringing attention to a start-up: make something that's inherently fascinating due to features. This is unlike anything online I've seen before because the functionality just doesn't exist anywhere else. So it's a great thing to watch and it also tells you about the service. I like that you keep constantly…

Can you do this with any piece of writing on Etherpad? Anything you write with it now you will be able to play back like this soon. Etherpad is already saving all the keystrokes. They just haven't released the player yet. (This is a one-off prototype.)

[deleted]
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