Microsoft’s FUSE Labs has released a new social experiment that is designed to enable users to discover, create and share Microsoft Office documents with their friends on Facebook. Called Docs, the online beta service is based on the Web Apps technology already built into Microsoft Office 2010.
“This product was designed to be social,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the company’s f8 developer conference in San Francisco. “It is built from the ground up with the assumption that every user would have their real identity and friends.”
Office for Everyone
The seamless integration of Microsoft Office 2010 with Facebook enables users to decide with whom they want to share their documents at each stage of the process — from privately creating and editing to collaborating on docs and sharing the final result publicly on the web. “You can . . . have someone help you edit it, incorporate feedback, and then share it with the world,” noted Pat Kinsel, a program manager at FUSE Labs.
Moreover, users are not limited to creating and editing their document files exclusively in an online environment. “Documents can be viewed and edited directly within a web browser — or, with a single click, you can edit them more richly and powerfully through the Microsoft Office software on your PC or Mac,” said Lili Cheng, general manager of FUSE Labs.
The advantage of sharing and collaborating in the Docs.com online environment is that this makes it possible for everyone to create and collaborate on Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents — including those who do not have Microsoft Office running on their computers, Cheng noted.
“If you don’t have Office, you can use the web app to create [documents] online,” Cheng said. “We really believe that people don’t have these lines between work and play, so…