In our newsletter AJAX Website Applications, I featured a web-based word processing application called Writely. Well, Google bought them and it is now known as Google Docs & Spreadsheets. I have officially made the jump. I'm doing all my writing in Google Docs. For the past year or so every Web Smart newsletter has been written using Google Docs. Before I send them out I usually email an invite to a handful of Newfangled folks to edit and review it before I send it out. With Google Docs they can actually all edit at the same time--though that's not exactly recommended.

I've also switched to Google Spreadsheets. This has been a huge communication, collaboration, and efficiency booster for us. Now management and accounting can readily check up on budgets, cash flow and forecasting. We can make edits on the fly which we all see in real time from any location.

Zoho does, of course, have both word processing and spreadsheet options. And Buzzword is a new web-based word processing system that's still in invitation only beta. It's Flash based rather than AJAX based but their interface and control over layout is amazing, well beyond what Google, Zoho, or the others are offering.

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