Docs for Facebook: Microsoft Office Functionality within Facebook
Redmond-based software giant Microsoft and popular social networking site Facebook have joined hands in an effort to create an online document-sharing service that is somewhat similar to Google Docs. What the two companies have come up with is an app simply called Docs and a new site, Docs.com
To give Docs for Facebook a shot you need only go to Docs.com and sign in using Facebook Connect. The site went live the other day, at Facebook’s F8 conference. Please note that the Docs for Facebook app is still in Beta – this means there’s limit to how many people can use it.
Based on Microsoft Office 2010, Docs allows users to create, edit, and share Office documents with all their Facebook friends or with the world should they decide to share them with everyone. The app supports Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. New documents the user creates can show up in the news feed, just like status updates and pictures do.
If you already have an Office document, you can upload it to from your PC to the web. You can then view and edit that document no matter where you are. And so can others, should you choose to share that document.
You can thank Microsoft’s FUSE (Future Social Experiences) team for coming up with Docs for Facebook. The FUSE Team, in about 4 months, managed to take the Office 2010 Web Apps technology and came up with the Docs app for Facebook.
“The FUSE Labs mission is to explore a range of “Future Social Experiences”. In this exploration it’s our belief that we may increase the value of Office ‘docs’ by giving everyone the ability to seamlessly take their friends and connections with them from Facebook to docs.com. The fact that we’ve been able to adapt the Office 2010 “Web Apps” technology to work directly with Facebook truly speaks to the flexibility and power not just of the Facebook platform, but also of the Office system’s rich “contextual collaboration” capabilities,” commented FUSE General Manager, Lili Cheng.
To give Docs for Facebook a shot you need only go to Docs.com and sign in using Facebook Connect. The site went live the other day, at Facebook’s F8 conference. Please note that the Docs for Facebook app is still in Beta – this means there’s limit to how many people can use it.
Based on Microsoft Office 2010, Docs allows users to create, edit, and share Office documents with all their Facebook friends or with the world should they decide to share them with everyone. The app supports Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. New documents the user creates can show up in the news feed, just like status updates and pictures do.
If you already have an Office document, you can upload it to from your PC to the web. You can then view and edit that document no matter where you are. And so can others, should you choose to share that document.
You can thank Microsoft’s FUSE (Future Social Experiences) team for coming up with Docs for Facebook. The FUSE Team, in about 4 months, managed to take the Office 2010 Web Apps technology and came up with the Docs app for Facebook.
“The FUSE Labs mission is to explore a range of “Future Social Experiences”. In this exploration it’s our belief that we may increase the value of Office ‘docs’ by giving everyone the ability to seamlessly take their friends and connections with them from Facebook to docs.com. The fact that we’ve been able to adapt the Office 2010 “Web Apps” technology to work directly with Facebook truly speaks to the flexibility and power not just of the Facebook platform, but also of the Office system’s rich “contextual collaboration” capabilities,” commented FUSE General Manager, Lili Cheng.
