We have all heard much talk of 'Web 2.0' of late and how 'ajax'-powered sites will change the way we intereact with web applications. Whether you think this is much ado about nothing or the transition to a new era of dot-boom, (or, as I do, somewhere in between), you should check out Writely, a browser-based word processor. It's not nearly as feature-rich as desktop word processors like Microsoft Word, AbiWord or Open Office Writer, but it's more than capable of functioning as a replacement for any of those products for most folks' typical word processing needs. It includes some handy additional features, such as posting your document to your weblog, sharing files over the net, competent revision tracking, and collaborative text editing. Of course, it also supports saving your file out to .doc format so you can open it in your regular word processor. I'll be provocative and suggest that it's not hard to imagine replacing expensive campus-wide lab installs of Microsoft Office with a more refined version of a tool like this in the medium-term future.

Writely is still in beta, which means it's free to sign up and try, but their plan is to begin charging for some of the features once they're out of beta. Take a moment and sign up now so you can get a feel for a possible future of word processing. If the subject interests you, you might also check out Writeboard and Zoho Writer. Both are variations on the same theme, though Writeboard is more focused on collaboration and versioning, and less on trying to mimic a typical desktop word processing app.