Tech For Free!

If you are seeking a FREE document collaboration tool for those less enthused, or unwilling to learn new technology, listen up as I’ve got one word for you: Writeboard. In less than 30 seconds (not an exaggeration) you can easily create a place for you and others to collaborate on a document for FREE, and independent of a registration process.

How It Works
Its very simple. You visit http://www.writeboard.com and create your Writeboard by completing a form which requests three items: a name for the board; a password for the board; and an email address.

Once you’ve created the Writeboard, you can immediately being typing content into the blank text box, or you can copy/paste from another file such as a .doc. After content has been added, save it, and then invite collaborators via *email.

Collaborators access the site through the web address and password that was provided via *email. Once logged in, collaborators begin editing the document by clicking the edit button. When finished they enter their name at the bottom of the page and click save. The most recent version is then available for the next person to visit the Writeboard. Its important to note that Writeboard is considered to be “asynchronous”, which means that people can access the Writeboard at any time. People don’t have to be online at the same time to edit the document.

*Email
Upon creating the Writeboard, an email is sent to the Writeboard creator, which is inclusive of the Writeboard’s name, web address and password. The Writeboard creator can then forward the email on to future collaborators.

Versions
If you are worried someone may delete critical information, or perhaps you are just interested in tracking who made edits, utilize Writeboard’s version tool. If you want to go back in time, simply click date/time/author stamp found under versions (right side of the page).

Comments
Writeboard provides a comment feature at the bottom of the page which allows people to provide feedback without actually editing the document. This is especially useful for situations in which you need people to approve content.

Formatting
Writeboard’s strength is in allowing people to collaborate on content creation and/or organization, not formatting. Once you’ve finalized the content and organization, you should then format the document in another word processing program like Microsoft Word. Your Writeboard content can be exported as a .txt file (most word processing applications will open this) or copy/paste your board’s content into another document.

Administration
A nice feature Writeboard provides is a RSS feed to the board. As the creator of the board you might want to consider subscribing so that you can receive alerts of of when the board has been edited. Anyone can subscribe to the feed, but I’ve found this tool to be most helpful when I’m responsible for gathering input.

Conclusion
While document formatting is not its strength, Writeboard offers a quick and easy (in the clouds) approach to document collaboration by providing a simple web page that allows contributors to add, delete and edit content while tracking versions. Its free and allows anyone to create an unlimited amount of Writeboards, while inviting an unlimited amount of collaborators through a simple email invitation. Tour Writeboard