The Buzz About Buzzword

You know that feeling you get when two of your favorite things have just been meshed together into an amazing combination? If so, you can imagine the effect Buzzword has had on me, being a writer and a Flash animator. This flash-based word processor is quickly becoming one of my favorite web applications.

In addition to being absolutely beautiful, Buzzword is ridiculously easy to use. Even people who don’t understand common icons could effortlessly process a document in Buzzword, because the name of each tool pops up when you mouse over an icon. And all the basic tools are there–insert tables, images, lists, comments, headers, or footers without searching through long menus. It does spell check, but it doesn’t have a word count tool or many fonts to choose from yet. Additionally, I’ve had some issues when it comes to using some of the tools (especially copy).

That aside, I’d say Buzzword is definitely a valuable tool. You can create your documents from any Javascript-enabled web browser with Flash Player 9 installed; PC or Mac. Plus, you can define the editing privileges of those you share it with by labeling them a reader, reviewer, or co-author. Best of all, Buzzword is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) word processor, so you’ll know that everyone else will see the document exactly as they should.

Buzzword is a product of Virtual Ubiquity. While Buzzword can definitely match applications such as Google Docs, its lack of integration with other applications and services isn’t helping it gain any speed. Show Buzzword some love at preview.getbuzzword.com.