Google Docs facilitate collaboration

Google Spreadhsheets is one of three applications that currently make up Google Docs. The others are a word processing service and a presentation service. In the long run, Google hopes these will compete for some of the users of Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint. (See this blog post).

We created a class roster using Google's network spreadsheet platform. There are tradeoffs between stand-alone and network applications. For example, network applications are generally slower than stand-alone applications because transferring data to and from a network location is usually slower than transferring it from your hard or flash drive. Furthermore, networked client-side programs are generally written in JavaScript, and execution speed is limited by the JavaScript interpreter in your browser.

We may even be able to see speed differences when making simple changes to our class roster spreadsheet. Does it seem as fast as Excel when you are editing or formatting a cell? How about if you do some arithmetic? (Do a test).

The capabilities of a network application may also differ from a comparable stand-alone application. For example, Excel allows you to sort a spreadsheet on multiple columns, while a Google spreadsheet limits you to sorting on one column at a time.

That is just some of the bad news. But, is there good news as well?

The key advantage to a Google spreadsheet over a stand-alone program like Excel is that it facilitates collaboration, as shown in this short video.

Collaboration support features in a Google spreadsheet include:

looking back to see revisions made by ourselves and others
subscribing to revisions so we are notified when others make changes to the spreadsheet
discussing the spreadsheet with others who are logged in at the same time (synchronous collaboration)
inviting new people to share in spreadsheet creation
publishing the spreadsheet for others to see (saving while editing does not publish the result)

The Google Docs development team maintains a support site which they use to help users, inform them of new features and plans, and get feedback from them. At the support site, a user or developer can:

ask questions of other users at the Google Docs threaded discussion forum
report bugs and track fixes here
keep up to date on new features and plans on the Docs team blog
suggest a new feature here

Note that this support function is as important as the spreadsheet and other services themselves. They represent a substantial investment on Google's part, but much of the input and value is supplied by users.

Finally, here is the recording of a webcast showing how some people at Google use online productivity tools internally.

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