There is a move towards sharing and it extends beyond the usual batch of ‘social’ tools like Facebook and MySpace. Good old fashioned word processor and spreadsheet files can now be shared ensuring more effective communication saving time (and therefore money). That’s a good thing right? 
Google Docs is part of Google’s plan to dominate your online activity and have all businesses ‘Go Google‘. It allows you to create and share documents online versus local or network based file storage.
Benefits include:
1. No longer having to email files between staff
2. Access files from anywhere you have Internet connectivity
3. Secure
4. No need to backup files
5. Ability to see real time versions of each file
The files can also be simultaneously viewed by a group during meetings. Couple all of these benefits with the release and anticipated growth of Google Wave, throw in some cloud based computing and you get a very tasty solution that will transform future business communication.
The following video provides more information:
As the Internet continues to infiltrate an increasing amount of our daily activities Google Docs is an amazing business tool especially for anyone who travels extensively. What online tools and collaborative products help your business? Let us know!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
A very timely article. I had added uploading our company docs to my assistant’s to-do list for this week yesterday! I didn’t know about the function where several people can work on one document. That is very good to know.
Using entire google apps (premier edition) now… mail for @webographers.com, docs, sites, etc.
Docs is nice now as you can upload any doc format and elect for Google Docs to not “convert” it to their format (for purpose of storage.
Hi Marc,
I recently blogged about the file format upgrade to Google Docs:
http://www.powersiteblog.com/2010/02/03/google-docs-allows-new-file-sharing-method
but I wasn’t aware of the ‘premier edition’ – thanks
Steve