If you run an Etherpad site, please read this.

[John McLear]

Hey, we have been doing a bunch of PR and marketing lately in a bid to
get a good push behind Etherpad Lite when we release version 1 in
August. If you haven't heard of Etherpad Lite then you need to read
this.

We have found that the best way to introduce people to Etherpad Lite
is to give them a beta option, in PrimaryPad's case we are replacing
public pads with Etherpad Lite.

If you can write a blog post, a tweet, or even make some videos that
go up to youtube that would be perfect.

So why should you be interested in Etherpad Lite?
Cleaner/Slicker UI - easier to use
Less Code - easier to modify
Less resources required - less hardware barriers to adopt Etherpad
An API - easier to integrate Etherpad with other pieces of
awesomeness

All of the above and we kept 99% of the core functionality.

See Etherpad lite here: http://beta.etherpad.org
Details including a link to download available here: http://etherpad.org/get-involved/

Note for people heavily invested in developing Etherpad: I believe
that Etherpad lite is the natural evolutionary path of Etherpad, it
brings Etherpad to a larger audience and ergo we should find more
developers and users getting involved. I admit that we do lose some
of the hard work we have put in other the last 2 years by taking this
road and that does hurt and come at a cost, probably no more so than
the cost to Primary Technology who have paid for the majority of the
Etherpad Lite development. I expect we will make some enemies/losing
some friends by having two versions. Any input/advice is appreciated,
we need everyone's support to take Etherpad to the next level!

Note for people working on pro democracy/humanitarian based projects:
Etherpad has become the standard for many foreign countries going
through times of conflict. These countries tend not to trust western
superpowers so often choose to host their own Collaborative editor to
draft new laws and try to find a way to settle conflicts by using
words other than weapons. At the Etherpad foundation we want to
support their struggle, we believe Etherpad Lite makes this way more
possible as you can now run the Etherpad server on a mobile phone. By
running the server on a mobile phone with hotspot mode enabled you are
able to get 4 or 5 people in a room or over the net working together
to solve a problem without any dependency or influence on third
parties. This is also key for freedom organizations and/or parties
don't represent the status quo/majority vote. This is truly
significant from a humanitarian stand point, it is difficult to stress
our responsibility here, we shouldn't take it lightly.

Cheers






John McLear
Etherpad - Our goal is to make collaborative editing the standard on
the web.

[John McLear]

WRONG BETA SITE ADDRESS: http://beta.primarypad.com is the correct URL
to see Etherpad Lite in action.

Apologies!