Google acquires EtherPad online collaboration tool. Google, probably the most prominent advocate of moving traditional productivity software such as word processors online, acquired a small company called AppJet whose EtherPad service fits into that agenda.
AppJet announced the Google acquisition Friday. "The EtherPad team will continue its work on real-time collaboration by joining the Google Wave team," the site said. AppJet offered free and premium versions of its service, which could import Microsoft Word documents, Web pages, PDFs, and plain text files, and let groups of people edit them collectively on what it called pad. A "time-slider" feature let people look back at earlier incarnations of a pad. For Educators. Calendar.