Why is it that folks simply don’t know about Google Docs?

Last night my wife was grinding away at a school project, specifically a collaboratively written 37-page paper. Sounds like a blast, eh? As the deadline loomed she and her two collaborators were taking turns frantically making edits and then emailing the doc to the others for their turns in order. So while one person was working, the other two sat idle. In other words, at any given time, roughly 36 of the 37 pages were not being touched, and two-thirds of the brain power were checking their email every 30 seconds. That’s crazy talk! Enter Google Docs. It might still technically be in beta, but Wes dug up some sweet stats on its soaring popularity.

Money quotes from blogger Becky Blitzenhofer:

Lately, I seem to be getting more invites to view a Google document (rather than a Word document). I guess I’m not surprised though. It has been just over a year since Google Docs and Spreadsheets was officially released, and it has been just under a year since Microsoft released Office 2007. As many know, Office 2007 includes a whole new interface that is unfamiliar, and potentially frustrating, to the veteran Office user.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets are free and easy to use. In addition, they offer online sharing and collaboration, which is becoming a complete necessity in today’s workplace. The more people share links to their documents, the more people will be exposed to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Google doesn’t have to do much, as Docs and Spreadsheets are viral by nature and should continue to spread. Google can move on to saving the world (such as with this project), while users continue to spread the news about a possible alternative to Office 2007.

Check the charts. There were roughly 200,000 unique visitors in October 2006 and over 1.4 million a year later. Nice jump indeed, but compared to computer users overall (or even just Microsoft Office users), that number isn’t much.

Google Docs is to documents what content management systems are to websites. What? That analogy isn’t razor sharp and crystal clear? I just like to insert “content management system” into everything I write these days.

What I mean is that in the old days of 2005, most organizations had to shepherd any and all website changes through the almighty webmaster. If two revisions showed up at once, one request sat idle while the first revision was made. Now we have content management system websites that allow multiple layperson contributors to edit multiple pages at will.

Further that, the editing takes place on a Web server, so you’re never without your latest content or development tools, like Dreamweaver. If you can hit the website, you can edit the content. That’s how Google Docs works. The documents live on a Google Web server, so if you have Internet access you can get your doc. No more, “Oh crap, I left the Fitzbergensimmons report on my C drive!”

AND here’s the kicker: multiple users can access and edit the same doc in real time. And all edits are tracked and recorded, so if some bossy wanker deletes your brilliant phrase, you can bring it right back. In short, once you use, and collaborate on, a web-based doc, the limits of desktop applications will simply glare into your eyeballs like those annoying halogen headlights.

So we’re back to the question of why don’t folks know about Google Docs? It’s been around, in one form or another, since the summer of 2005. This free, web-based, collaborative word processor has been available for over two years, and three well-educated graduate students had no inclination to use it, and at least one had never heard of it. Why not? I don’t know if it’s lack of promotion or lack of understanding, or if it’s simply because the large majority of computer users are Microsoft lemmings. We don’t know what we’re not missing, right?

Well now my wonderful wife knows what she was missing, and I hope she gets her teammates on board. I know I won’t miss the late-night panic attacks she’s been suffering.