Typewith.me
| Tool: | Type with me: Online collaboration tool |
| URL: | typewith.me |
| Key benefit: | Empowers your team to collaborate remotely without having to take the time to sign up and register for a service. The first user just clicks to create a new document. This creates a unique URL that can be shared with other participants who can go to and see whatever the others have typed or they can join in as well with typing, editing. You can set up so each author shows up in a different colour. You can also chat on the side while collaborating on your document or meeting.
Note: This tool is based on the open source Etherpad, the popular service Google acquired but then discontinued with its launch of Google Wave. Etherpad is a lot easier to use than Google Wave though and luckily the open source community has resurrected the tool via Typewith.me! |
| Tip: | Once you have finished a collaboration, use the Export feature to convert to a crisp PDF file, Microsoft Word document or other formats. This will be give you instant “minutes” of your meeting that can be shared with participants.
You can save revisions as you go so you can go back to a previous revision at any time or use the cool time slider to travel back in time to see the historic content. This can also be used to get a sense of the flow of the meeting or discussion. |
| Price: | Completely Free! |
| Cyri: | This is a really handy tool for a quick online collaboration. The only potential drawback is it is a public document that is created so doesn’t have the protection features of a more sophisticated collaboration tool like Google Docs. Score: 7/10 |
| Ivan: | Works very well for a quick online meeting, brainstorming, or document creation, especially when some or all participants are located remotely and have different platforms, software, familiarity with collaboration tools, etc. Score: 7.5/10 |
