More tightly integrated with its owner, that is. I’ve always wondered how Writely was supposed to make any money. Today’s email brings a clue. New users or the users you invite to collaborate on documents will need to get themselves a gmail/gcalendar/gpersonalised account to participate. Good move, I think. Writely is a cool tool, but it’s a poor vehicle for advertising. If it starts to pull its weight by drawing more people into the Google empire, then it will remain free and a focus for development for a bit longer.

One spot of weirdness: I already have a gmail account, though it wasn’t the one I used to sign up for Writely. Hope there’s some way along the line to switch my documents over if the integration goes further - and I hope it does.

Dear ********

In a few days, we will be switching over to Google Accounts for Writely registration and sign-in.

To make things simple, we will create a new Google account for you at *********@********.com as part of the migration process.
You don’t have to do anything different — just sign in as usual, and your documents will be right there.

For more information about signing into Writely with your Google Account, see the FAQ at http://www.google.com/support/writely/bin/topic.py?topic=8615
Thanks!
Google Writely Team

Tags:   business_model · SaaS · web 2.03 Comments