Some of you might have heard about Etherpad, an online word processor with real time collaboration capabilities. Etherpad was recently acquired by Google and big G released the service’s source code to the public on 18th of December. Just hours after the code was made public, an Etherpad clone by the name of PiratePad came online at http://piratepad.net. The new service is hosted by none other than folks at Swedish Pirate Party, a popular bunch among file sharers across the world. PiratePad is identical to Etherpad in terms of features and is still a free online word processor with ‘real’ real time collaboration (as seen on Google Wave).
Using PiratePad is really simple. To create a new document all you need to do is to hit on the ‘Create new pad’ button. To share it, you can either email the unique link on browser address bar or simply give it to your collaborators via IM or any other medium. Once you share it, all the changes you or any other collaborator make to the document will be visible to all shared users in real time, with a zero second delay. Changes made by different users may be identified using an ‘Authorship Color’.
Apart from real time features PiratePad offers decent word processing capabilities including text alignment, under/redo, text formatting, bullets, document import and revision based save. All in all it’s an interesting web app – check it out.
[Click Here] to visit PiratePad Homepage
