
Google acquires AppJet/Etherpad - dreeves
http://etherpad.com/ep/blog/posts/google-acquires-appjet
======
colinplamondon
Well, that sucks.

I was psyched when I first read the subject, since I figured they'd be lending
Google Docs their awesome text editor. Instead they're going to Google Wave,
where the interface blows. Etherpad's lightyears more useful, more flexible,
and more valuable. Blah.

~~~
mahmud
Don't be selfish. Someone just had their hard work payoff; for me it's better
to know they have been rewarded for their effort, instead of me just being
able to use a nifty web app.

To the Etherpad guys: listen up! it goes like this, tonight, wherever you are,
you're buying a round for everyone, capice?

~~~
colinplamondon
It's awesome for them that they're getting a big check from Google, but that
has no relevance to me as an etherpad user.

~~~
mahmud
I think the benefits of having a successful peer far outweigh your ability to
use a free online text editor. Whatever loss in productivity is caused by the
absence of Etherpad (or god forbid, having to use a G-branded version, or
another service) can be made up for with the rush and motivation you _should_
get from seeing one of your own get off the Ramen diet at last (or at least
not have to worry if their effort will ever pay off; stuff like Etherpad will
get built into browsers and OSes RSN)

Any big fish could have taken their client base without paying a dime;
everyone from Skype to Computer Associates could have obsoleted them without
even trying. Heck, Open Source IM packages like Pidgin could easily add a
service like Etherpad and those boys would have labored for nothing.

If you don't like what I am saying, the next time you cash out, just know that
I am just as happy for you :-)

~~~
kyro
You do know that probably most of Etherpad's users aren't their peers, yeah?
So to them, they've just lost a really great service.

~~~
mahmud
Correct, that's one misunderstanding on my part that I have been trying to
rectify for the last hour and half: forgetting there was another side to this,
the end users'.

I will have to repent and become a consumer activist: I will boycott products
A/B tested on humans.

------
bradgessler
Congratulations to the AppJet/Etherpad team. When I thought about your "exit"
options, Google was at the top of the list. This doesn't surprise me given how
talented you folks are and the real-time web expertise that Google needs more
of these days.

It really _really_ sucks to see Google shutting down Etherpad though. We used
it at Poll Everywhere quite a bit for collaborative coding, now we'll have to
find something else. Any chance you could convince Google to keep Etherpad
around in some form?

 _sigh_ Google kills another innovative product.

~~~
apit
try Gobby. gnu/linux only, iirc

~~~
dchest
_Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one
session and a multi-user chat. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
and other Unix-like platforms._

<http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/>

~~~
jacobolus
Runs on OS X is a bit of an exaggeration though. It can supposedly be
installed through MacPorts, but the two times I ever tried, MacPorts installed
about half of normal Linux distro, before failing on some broken dependency.

If you want to go through several hours of compiling and several hundred
megabytes of dependencies, with your fingers crossed that things won’t
inexplicably break 3 hours in, feel free to try to install Gobby on a Mac.
Personally, I’ll stick to SubEthaEdit, or whatever web-based editor, if I need
collaboration.

* * *

I really think desktop collaborative editors should try to provide a web-based
alternative front-end, for just this reason, that it’s nice for _everyone_ to
be able to contribute, and there’s no better way to ensure that than through
the web.

------
madpragmatic
While I am happy for the Etherpad team, this is still disappointing. The most
useful aspect of Etherpad was its minimalism, so it is a shame to see it
absorbed into bloatware.

------
simonw
Very upset to hear EtherPad is shutting down. I've used it a bunch (projected
on a wall it makes a great collaborative note pad for BarCamp sessions) - will
have to find a good replacement.

~~~
cschep
this feels silly, but is this opening an area for a new startup to clone them?
They'd only be down one exit option. Albeit a very big nice exit option, but
there are obviously people that would use their product.

~~~
apgwoz
The obvious way to make it more valuable is to integrate a web version with
other editors--be they rich text or not. I'm not sure how easy it is to plug
into Word, but seems like that could add lots of value.

------
bioweek
Does anyone have any theories on why appjet never took off as a product?

Everytime I think about it, it seems like the perfect idea; save people the
pain of setting up a server, hosting it, etc every time they want to make a
web app.

Was it a bad implementation of this idea? Or was the idea just ahead of its
time? Or was it something else?

~~~
drcode
I was a heavy appjet user. It was indeed an awesome system.

I think there were two reasons it didn't succeed:

1\. It's niche was razor-thin. It required some skill to use, but was so
minimalistic that many programmers would prefer to take the extra time to set
up a "real" server.

2\. Too ahead of its time

I suspect tools like appjet will be commonplace in a couple of years. In fact,
I wouldn't be surprised if the "Google Wave" thing is a ruse and that these
guys are actually working on an online editor for Google App Engine... This
could, in theory, turn Chrome OS into an awesome dev environment, no?

~~~
e1ven
I'd love to chat with you for a bit about what you liked about AJ, but your
email isn't public. If you have some time, I'd love to discuss.
cdavis@darkenedsky.com

------
e1ven
Congratulations to the Etherpad team. It's too bad that AppJet never took off
more as a product; It seemed like it had a lot of potential. Etherpad was a
lot of fun- I used it internally on a few projects, after seeing PG's demo
with playback.

Hopefully you can add that feature to Google Wave while you're there; It was
by far my favorite aspect of Etherpad. Even thought I can copy and paste my
Etherpads into G:Wave, I can't keep the history, so that'll be gone forever in
March, it seems.

~~~
cpr
Playback is an essential element of Wave; it's in there from the start.

------
antirez
Now you have an idea for your startup. A cool application was just killed and
you can replace it.

~~~
flog
This actually is the idea I've been working towards for the last couple of
months. The backend is mostly sorted, but it would take another month or so to
get a working product out the door.

Does HN think this is still a viable idea if the Big G has entered the game as
well?

~~~
antirez
Sure, the Big G didn't entered the game, forced the exit of the best player
instead.

------
AndrewWarner
There's no better tool for text collaboration right now.

I've been using it for my interview transcripts. With Etherpad, I can let 12
people on Mechanical Turk each transcribe a 5-minute section of my interview.
And they can all be on at once and none of them needs and account.

I can even hit the play button and see how they work:
<http://mixergy.etherpad.com/ep/pad/view/23/latest>

~~~
neilc
Does anyone know of a similar tool that provides the "replay" feature for text
editing? I don't actually need collaboration, just screencast-like replay.

------
niallsmart
I don't understand all the negativity about etherpad being killed in this
thread. Sounds like an opportunity to me...if you reckon it's so useful, and
google are going to kill it, then go build etherpadv2 and charge for it. :)

------
est
As it happens, anyone knew an Etherpad replacement or alternative?

~~~
alaskamiller
Squad, <https://squadedit.com/>

~~~
trotzke
Squad is one of my passion projects. And while I love it, I've never really
thought of it as a competitor/replacement for EtherPad.

Squad serves a great purpose for developers working together on code, but it
isn't embedable, and doesn't do wysiwyg text formating. It's focused on syntax
highlighting and opening and saving local files. So for some it may be an
alternative, but not for everybody.

------
CytokineStorm
This seems to me like a classic case of a company buying another company just
for it's patents. I'd be willing to bet that the main reason Google is buying
Etherpad is their synchronization patent and any other patents Etherpad owns
that cover the functionality of Google Wave. Google probably won't use any of
the Etherpad code in Wave.

------
est
> A number of ex-Googlers are AppJet executives, including CEO Aaron Iba, CTO
> J.D. Zamfirescu, and COO Daniel Clemens

Goodbye Google, hello Google again.

~~~
jodrellblank
So, they had to leave Google to be able to create something Google wants
enough to buy?

What does that say about Google going the way of Microsoft or $any-other-big-
company?

~~~
bumblebird
They're shutting down etherpad. They can't have wanted it that much, surely :/
Maybe they just wanted the employees back, or wanted to kill potential
competitors.

------
treblig
Anyone hearing anything on their valuation? Have the details of the deal been
disclosed?

------
jodrellblank
The only thing that doesn't suck about this is that appjet consider it a good
thing. I hope they get piles of cash from it.

I kind of wish I'd got the private network edition and a handful of perpetual
licenses before they pulled the plug though.

I also wish Microsoft had licensed Etherpad technology for use in Sharepoint -
goodness knows, it could use the improvement. Google Wave must already have
piles of web/ajax developers.

------
bumblebird
Congrats to the team, but it's a shame Etherpad didn't survive on its own
IMHO. I thought premium accounts etc were coming?

~~~
fizx
TechCrunch is claiming 8 figures, which would be a bit high for a simple
talent acquisition. Seems like a talent+tech acquisition, more along the lines
of FriendFeed than Parakey or Pownce.

Edit: Parent formerly read: "...Seems like PR spin. Instead of shutting down a
startup and going to work for big.co and risk being called out as a failure,
work out a deal with big.co to 'aquire' the startup then shut it down. Maybe
we need a new word for a talent acquisition, where the startup is shut down
and just acquired as a more optimized way of hiring. ..."

~~~
bumblebird
Sorry for the edit, I decided I don't know enough about why Google would buy
it to comment. I would think they have a good amount of talent/tech already
working on wave.

Perhaps more a 'buy to kill potential competitor'?

Still sad to see Etherpad die :/

------
strlen
I am somewhat interested in their comet container which is based on JVM +
Rhino. I am guessing they've rolled their own (using their raw NIO or Netty),
rather than go with Jetty's "Continuations". I wonder if there's any chance
Google will open source it, much like Facebook outsourced FriendFeed's
Tornado?

I am also curious about their distribution model (how do you provider a
consistent experience if this is to run on multiple machines?) -- or lack
thereof (do they use load balancer "magic" to ensure that all collaborating on
a single specific session go to a single machine, potentially creating hot
spots)?

------
DTrejo
Ugh. I use etherpad. I want my etherpads to keep working! Argg

(end of selfish rant, congrats btw)

------
zhyder
We've been working on a solution with Operational Transform as well... but
looking at the kind of demand you guys have for it, sounds like we (and other
startups) should rush to fill the void left by Etherpad.

------
qeorge
Great for the team, but this sucks as a user. I've come to frequently use
Etherpad for ad-hoc chat rooms, and now its impossible to make new pads.

I really hope EtherPad doesn't go the way of Jaiku. I really liked the
product.

------
fauigerzigerk
As a startup founder I'm happy to see financially successful exits. But as a
user I have to wonder whether the software I like is a mere byproduct of an
elaborate job application process.

------
stjarnljuset
I have never used Etherpad, and from the comments I'm a little saddened to
find that now I can't check it out.

Does anyone have an old Etherpad that I can play with, or even just a video of
how it's used?

~~~
paul
Here's a test pad: <http://etherpad.com/FQMBcRK9x2>

~~~
stjarnljuset
Thank you! This is actually quite interesting since it's a meta-conversation
about Etherpad, and Aaron of Etherpad includes this:

"Edits to the document are represented as mathematical functions that can be
applied in any order, and have other special properties that make this
realtime."

Unfortunately I don't have the math background to really connect what that
means.

------
stuntgoat
Congratulations Etherpad!!

\--

Why does everyone assume google will destroy the clean interface of Etherpad?
Why, instead do people think the Wave interface won't be customizable, since
it is an open api?

<http://code.google.com/apis/wave/guide.html>

"""The Google Wave API is an open platform allowing developers to extend the
functionality of Google Wave itself . . ."""

------
blasdel
Hopefully one of their former customers with a copy of the "Private Network
Edition" will leak it for posterity.

------
rokhayakebe
Well deserved. Etherpad is one of those products that really impresses you.
You guys have earned it. Cheers,

------
javery
It seems like most of these guys came from Google in the first place, must be
an interesting experience to leave a company, found a new company, and then
have that company bought back. (I know it happens quite a bit)

------
Tichy
What's the point in shutting it down? Will Google buy every company that
creates an editor like that? That can't work well forever.

------
epall
I was wondering what the competition between those two would be...I guess
there won't be any!

------
yan
Anyone know if more information will be released on the algorithms they
use(d)?

~~~
mahmud
If they tell us the $ figures, I am sure you will be motivated enough to
discover the algorithms all on your own in an instant, or at least I would :-)
High rewards have a tendency to induce epiphanies.

[Edit: Here is how I think it works, from my brief 2-day usage of it.

Comet: persistent connection between client and server.

First client connects to the server and creats a session. Server creates a
"channel" with a file-handle/chan-id. Subsequent clients follow a URL to join
the channel.

Without the live editing, you can see how any write in one client's textarea
can be sent to the server and broadcast to all the channel members.

To allow for live editing, server keeps a "buffer" for the channel, initially
empty.

All clients have onKeyPress or similar keylogging javascript event handler. A
client might do internal buffering, say up to N characters or up to an X
terminator (space maybe)

At the start, the server sends a test packet to each client and sees how long
it takes, for timing purposes, call the time it takes to get a PONG response L
for lag. So in the future, when a client sends a text snippet, it's
timestamped, and the server subtracts the lag to get the actual sending time.

On the client side, display is refreshed after server response. When you type
something, it's being rendered by the browser, but once your buffered input is
sent, and the server responds, the display is refreshed by client-side
javascript, which also keep an internal "document text model".

The server sends updates to your client's text model, and the view is rendered
from this model. This allows the server to do all text-rearrangement on it
side, so javascript isn't tasked with sorting time-stamped strings.

Along with timestamps, each text segment is also ID'ed by user, this allows
the rendering engine to assign colors to the text.

Just wild speculation after giving this no more than 5 minutes of thought and
another 10 to type it.

]

------
icco
Sadest thing I have heard in a while. I guess I'll give squadedit a try now.

------
jstevens85
Anyone know if these guys will be moving to Sydney to join the Wave team?

------
ivankirigin
Congrats guys! Make cool stuff, and people have to pay attention.

------
nym
They should pull a foursquare ;-)

------
sweis
Congrats to J.D. and Aaron.

------
staunch
Congratulations!

------
gaborcselle
Congrats guys!

------
kwamenum86
Price?

------
modelic3
Fuck this. Part of starting new things is to disrupt the status quo. At this
point google is the status quo and they are not disrupting anything so the
EtherPad guys are just douchebag sellouts.

