It’s nice to share
Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Product
Manager
Many of you must be wondering, “Whatever happened to 2Web
Technologies?" Um - no? Anybody? Well, if you're
wondering, we joined Google's New York City office last year to
come up with a solution to a problem we understood all too well:
how to quickly and easily share information in real time.
Spreadsheets were a clear target. They can have real power, but
there are equally real drawbacks to collaborating and sharing them.
This fact led our little team to explore making spreadsheet
software, and the spreadsheets themselves, available on the web.
And now, Google Spreadsheets is available as a limited test on
only partly developed, we used Google Spreadsheets (alpha!) to
manage our task lists, our feature lists, our bandwidth estimates,
our storage estimates, even our complex team event voting ;). We
now know the true meaning of "share."
Now when I say “share,” I don’t mean “send group email,” and I
certainly don't mean "time-share". (That’s actually
the root of the problem we are trying to solve: multiple
out-of-sync versions that are email attachments.) I do mean “use and update the same
spreadsheet.” When I use Google Spreadsheets to organize events
with the other parents at my kids' school, we’ll be looking at
the same details at the same time. If I change the agenda of next
Friday’s teacher’s meeting, the other parents will see that change
immediately. When my brother-in-law’s bike club uses Google
Spreadsheets to track rides, they’ll be in sync — and if I change
the time of next week's ride, the other riders may actually
show up.
So don’t be surprised if you are soon invited by someone to share a
spreadsheet. (We're rolling this out as a
test.) Your kid's sports coach, your aunt in Omaha trying
to organize a major family reunion, your friend who promised to
compile a list of all your favorite hiking trails (and now wants
you to help), or your project team which now has a way to keep
tasks and status in one place for all to see.
Tags: , Jonathan, ManagerMany, Posted, product, Rochelle, Whatever, wondering