Writely becomes GDisk
I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Beyond search and Gmail, Docs has become the third cornerstone application to Google’s entire cloud strategy. Although they wouldn’t want us to believe that Google Docs is a hard drive replacement. It certainly is a replacement for the thumb drives that so many of us carry around to pass information from computer to computer. This 1 GB cloud-base drive allows us to upload and download any file type. It only makes sense that the same application that opens our Excel and Word documents ends up being our repository for everything. I believe it is only a matter of time before Google creates a number of helper applications that allow it to open and other types of files. Images are obvious, those can be opened at any time or in Picasa. PDFs can already be opened but maybe they’ll end up creating a flash-based reader or something. I’m just happy to see that Writely became something far more powerful and important than merely a way to open up Word documents.
Combined with Google’s chrome operating system, Docs with its new file features will provide access to everything you’ll ever need no matter what machine you’re working on. Once the helper applications are in place which will in ensure that any file type will be accessible via Chrome OS will be a viable option for most consumers. The big sales point of Chrome OS was the fact that we everything on the internet. The fact is that really we don’t. Google Docs provides that key functionality now and that redefines what an operating system is.
The old 20th-century files and folders concept is long overdue for an overhaul. At New Leaders we have been working on similar applications that open up the files within Thincloud. We have come to the realization that once you upload a document and it is within your database, you can modify that document without ever needing to download it again.
This is important for one very big reason. Today we still have to remember where we put our files and the different versions we create. Whether you put them on the desktop or a folder or on a thumb drive or somewhere else the point is you have to remember where you put them. Once you database the file and classified where it should be it’s always going to be accessible, never be lost and always backed up.
This is something that desktop computing has failed to deliver. Desktop computing is very powerful but the file browsers are terribly inefficient at and managing our files. We are simply placing things anywhere we feel that is the best organization that is meaningful to us.
Instead we should be following a structure that is universal and keeps all files in order no matter who comes in contact with them. While creativity and flexibility are good, they may not be the best idea when it comes to file naming, organization, versioning and retrieving information. It just makes things more complicated than they need to be. It is crucial to keep order in a world of chaos. Downloading duplicate files will only to the amount of chaos we have to deal with it could potentially make things worse than what they already are.
My hope is that these helper applications will become available to Google Docs as soon as possible. Allowing users to open any file type in the browser, if only readable at first.
Posted on Jan 18, 2010 by Kevin Milden
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