Facebook announced a new breed of Like buttons for the wider web today, but that’s not all. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also showed off a “glimpse into the future” in the shape of Docs.com a new social office suite from Microsoft.
Built in partnership between Facebook and Microsoft, Docs.com is a web-based office suite, not unlike Google Docs or Apple’s iWork.com. There’s a key difference here though: Docs.com already knows all about you, your friends and what you’re interested in.
Start using Docs.com and you’ll be able to create documents to share with existing Facebook friends. They’ll be told about your documents through standard Facebook messages, and able to view, edit, or comment on your work.
It side-steps an annoying quirk of Google Docs – needing to know your buddie’s contact details, and the need for them too to have a Google account. It’s also more open than Apple’s iWork.com, which only lets you view shared files. We mean, c’mon, who isn’t on Facebook, and who doesn’t like documents?!…. put your hand down at the back.
Microsoft Office heading to Nokia phones
Zuckerberg, or ”Zuck” to his friends, showed off Docs.com saying “this product was built from the ground up with the assumption that every user has their own friends. It’s designed to be social,” going on to say that Facebook has been working with select companies, such as Microsoft, to imagine a web where social information is taken for granted.
What he didn’t say was how quickly Microsoft was able to throw Docs.com together. “From concept to its initial implementation in less than four months,” explained Lili Cheng, Microsoft’s Fuze Labs, which built Docs.com
Docs.com supports word documents and Powerpoint presentations, as well as Excel spreadsheets, for real thrill-seekers. And the best bit? You can take Docs.com for a spin right now. It’s built using Microsoft Silverlight, and from our first few minutes with it, incredibly slick.
Out now | £free | Docs.com
