This just in (in case you care): Writely has been acquired by Google. See here: http://writely.blogspot.com/2006/03/google-yep-google.html.

Recalling my mission to make valuable new web tools understandable to the less-webby masses, allow me to explain why *I* care. Writely is an online word processor - kind of like Word for the web. I've been using it for a couple of months, and I've grown rather fond of it. To me, it epitomizes many of the reasons why I get excited about web technology, at its best. Why? Because Writely has great potential for fostering collaboration.

The main thing that makes it different from Word is that multiple people can work on a document simultaneously (just not on the same sentence at the same time. Anything else goes.) Writely tracks all revisions as previous versions that you can refer back to, and eliminates forever the horrible experience of passing around multiple versions of the same document, clogged up with endless "tracked" changes.

So, for example, earlier this week I was asked to help some friends write copy for a software product that they're launching soon. I plugged the bare-bones I was given into Writely, and did my best to come up with clear, engaging text. Then I added the project lead to the document as a "collaborator", and together we worked, talking out loud sometimes and working independently at others. Once we were feeling pretty good about what we'd come up with, we added in another project member to look it over. He made a bunch of changes that I thought were terrific, and preserved the good in what had already been done.

Together the three of us fine-tuned our document, live on the internet, until we were satisfied. What emerged felt like a truly collaborative effort. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy, and it was very clear to me that what we had created using Writely was better than what any of us would have come up with alone. I'm also quite certain that it was better than what would have resulted had we passed around a Word document and all added our two cents at different times.

I think there's something about giving over to the flow, trusting the process, watching your words be changed by another... and letting the wisdom of the group emerge. That's what social software can facilitate, at its best. That's why I get excited about this stuff! Maybe if we build the right technology, it really will contribute to the emergence of new capacities in human consciousness. Then our challenge will be to learn wise use of our tools, and discernment about when the tech is helpful, and when it is actually distancing us from the presence and awareness required to move towards the evolution of our consciousness.

(Big words for a blogger, eh? Oh, and if I've sold you on Writely, get yourself on the new waitlist quick.)

Ha ha ha ha ha... This made me laugh. I've been doing a lot of reading, trying to sort out the "bubble that will burst vs revolution that will change the world" debate about the evolution of the web. I found the irreverant Go Flock Yourself quite by accident and just had to pass along the following. It's commentary on an excerpt from Robert Scoble's new book about business blogging, in which he gives his list of six things that make blogging different from other forms of media.

“Social” (did the editor put his foot down against “Socialable?”) isn’t a misnomer, but the vast majority of the segments of this “one big conversation!” that I’ve witnessed play out like one big shitty office cocktail party — a bunch of people smiling and nodding and half-paying attention to one another while their brains fiendishly work out the problem of how to refocus the conversation on themselves.

I had to chuckle. I love the idea that the web is helping people to become participants rather than just consumers, and helping people to find their voice and express themselves. But some of the zealous proclamations about the massive democratic conversation that is the blogosphere can be a bit much, and it's true that talking does not necessarily equate to contributing value to the conversation.

(Yesterday I also read "The Amorality of Web 2.0" by Nick Carr, where he writes about the religious fervour some people have about the web, and his particular concerns about the growing "culture of the amateur." I'll leave it to him to make his point.)

For myself, I am left to conclude that the important factor remains the consciousness of the people using the tools. Just as individuals have to learn skills to communicate and collaborate in the "real world" (things like good listening skills, the practice of not acting or speaking from a reactionary or "triggered" state, the discernment to know when your comments are adding value, and when they are merely masturbatory, etc), so do we have to learn and apply the online equivalents of those skills. I think it's this personal and collective evolution of awareness that will determine whether or not the emerging technology will live up to all its hype.

(Sheesh, and I thought I was just going to post the quote!)