An Ode to Google Docs
Anyone in my Technology in Collaboration class can attest that I have an undying love for Google Docs. Since the day they were released they have made my life infinitely easier. Words can’t even describe, really. It’s a college student’s dream.
I’m an organizer. It’s what I do. I like lists. I like order. I like to figure out systems that make things easier. This, combined with managing a lot of people or being in a lot of groups, I find myself always needing a way to write things down to keep everyone on the same page.
Enter Google Docs. They’ve been a lifesaver these past few years. I’ve used them for everything from writing group research papers for various courses to organizing summer shopping lists for my roommates and I before we moved into our apartment this August. I even just set up a Doc to help organize weekend photo assignments for the Cornell Daily Sun. There really is no limit to what you can do with them. Well…ok there are a few, but I like to look past them out of respect for their many great qualities ;).
I can’t imagine how I would have made it through some of my classes last semester if it weren’t for gDocs. They’re particularly useful when it’s difficult to find common face-to-face meeting times to work on a paper together. Everyone can work on things on their own time. Wonderful. If you’re not using Google Docs yet…what the heck are you waiting for?? Really. Trust me. You won’t regret it!
OK. I realize that was a super geeky post. I mean, who professes their love to a web technology? Well, I’ve never denied my geek factor. :)
How about you? Do you ♥ gDocs or another web-based collaboration technology? Which one?
(This post was not paid for by Google or anyone else for that matter. I just love it that much).
Forever-Digital is a look inside the life and mind of 
For personal reasons, I try to stay away from Google. I have had a .mac account and use my idisk capability to store my documents and use the public folder to let my friends, colleagues have access and share info with them.
It’s been working great for me. The downsides are only 10G and $99 per year.
Hey Eric!
Other than the fact that you have to pay for .Mac (it goes against the whole poor college kid thing ;)), I don’t like that you can’t edit things in real-time. It’s crucial for my teammates to be able to view my edits and work with them right away and it’s even more important that we don’t have multiple copies that we then have to merge at the end. Overwriting is also a huge issue there. While I could see using .Mac for personal stuff – as a personal file server, I couldn’t imagine collaborating with it with any success.
I love gDocs too, I never need to use an office suite anymore. I used to use Open Office since that was free but it was just too bulky and slow. I also really like using GReader and GAnalytics. My favorite web technology in general is PHP and mySQL because you can make any kind of site imaginable very quickly and easily.
Hey Joe-
I had to dig you out of the spam again! Akismet really doesn’t like you!
I’m not a huge fan of Google Reader. I could just never get into it. Google Analytics is awesome though. I use it on all of my sites. I love the map view!
You kids don’t realize how lucky you are to have all this technology for school. I carried a typewriter back and forth to class! WISH we had all this stuff when I was in college!