Week 8/Thing 18: Google Docs

I decided to try out Google Docs, because I've been adding so many other Google tools (like Google Reader) as part of this class, and I'd like to keep things somewhat centralized.

I can't believe how EASY it was! I even shared the document with someone else (as a collaborator) and it was so nice to check the revision history to see exactly who made changes and when they did it. This is going to eliminate the need to send multiple files back and forth and the worry that you might not have the most recent version. I can't tell you how many of my file names end with "_2" or "_3" and so on...

I uploaded an existing Word document from my hard drive to Google docs, and then saved it as a web page. It can be seen here. I also made a few new documents - my mom has been after me to get her a list of things we need for our trip next week, so I am sending her a link rather than an e-mail attachment. Love it!

I wonder if the Microsoft folks are nervous about these free tools? I know Microsoft has developed some kind of shared office space too, but I haven't used it. Obviously Word and Excel are much more powerful tools, so I don't see the them going away anytime soon. But for people who just need basic word processing software, this is a wonderful option. And draft copies could always be done on Google Docs or Zoho, and then the final versions could be imported to Word to do the desktop publishing end of things. (As a side note, it seems like the Microsoft corporation is in a similar boat as librarians... they need to pay very careful to the changing marketplace if they want to survive!)

It also makes me wonder just how big those Google servers can be... they can hold all of our videos, documents, photos... for free? How long can this last? And before I use this too much I would want to know how secure things are and how often they are backed up!