TimBray on the need for "better" online authoring tools. If everyone's going to write for the Web (and it looks a lot of people are going to) we need the Web equivalents of [Word Perfect] and [Word Star] and [XyWrite] and MsWord, and we need them right now. Hmm, given that only 1 of those exists by now, maybe we need to think about that process... some thoughts:

• there are lots of very different writing ConText-s, maybe lots of writing won't even be recognized as such, so "everyone" may not need what Tim's talking about.

• it would be interesting to plot adoption curves of blogging and word processing against each other

• the HTML widget in MsIE isn't horrible, and probably the same can be said of the editors available for MozIlla (though I haven't used those)

• if you're a BigCo drone, MsWord (and Open Office) will let you save a standard word processing document as HTML, even if it's tag soup inside

• there's a lot to be said for Smart Ascii.

• Out Lining seems like a key idea. Esp when combined with Smart Ascii for in-line styles.

• OffLine/draft handling is important, and semi-coupled to the authoring tool.

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