Congratulations! "We are happy to announce that AppJet Inc. has been acquired by Google. The EtherPad team will continue its work on realtime collaboration by joining the Google Wave team." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

I've been waiting for this :) - Benjamin Golub

Congrats to the team (http://etherpad.com/ep...) - AJ Batac

I'm sad that they're shutting it down though :( - Paul Buchheit

Shutting it down?! why? - Susan Beebe

This freaking sucks. - Eric Florenzano

if the technology gets integrated with google docs, it would be as good as the current etherpad - Mike Chelen

Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm going to do now for jotting down notes...I guess back to email - Benjamin Golub

google docs still works nicely for most document tasks, including sharing or publishing as needed - Mike Chelen

I knew it! Docs really needs some Etherpad awesomeness http://blogoscoped.com/forum... - Jérôme

Google docs is my friend :) - Susan Beebe

Even Wave's playback needs some Etherpad's time-slider sauce. - Jérôme

SO this is like FF - another talent grab - Google's acquiring more smart talent - Susan Beebe

I hope Google announces some way for us to create new pads, my online learning classroom will not be the same without etherpad :-( - Shakeel Mahate

Ouch. - Адский Блондин

Oh noes! I'm with Shakeel...I need EtherPad for my high school Digital Media students. It's one of the few collaboration sites that isn't blocked at the district level. - Shea

Shutting down etherpad is a travesty. Fucking Google, keep it open. - Mitch

I had a feeling this would happen... Etherpad is basically a simplified proto-wave. - Lindsay

I loved etherpad. Simple and great for code sharing. I don't think there is any other web service like etherpad out there. It will be missed. - vivekian

During one of my phone screens, I was so frustrated with writely that I switched to etherpad. - Piaw Na

creative - ★ Soner Gönül

Google MUST keep Etherpad open after March 31st. I fear that this will be the new JotSpot, and there's no simple alternative around. - Jorge Martins Rosa

Adding new application interfaces like the EtherPad is the right next step for Wave. They need to move beyond the current Wave app interface towards multi-application document interoperability. Otherwise they will end up being categorized as just a really confusing chat services. - David Lounsbury

Yet another example of why you shouldn't use the cloud for anything remotely important. - Gabe

lelapin: Thing is, if they acquired Etherpad before Wave was created, Etherpad probably would have cost more to acquire. I'd say the long term potential of Wave having similar functionality, and more, devalued Etherpads product. In announcing that they will open source Etherpad, Google seems to be acknowledging this. Seems like a good outcome for everyone, Etherpad employees, Google and their users. - Andrew Perry