Screaming Penguin

Google is releasing an online spreadsheet thing-a-ma-jig today (sign ups are supposed to start at 9AM in labs if you are interested). This spreadsheet will focus on "sharing" and allow users to invite others to share the sheet online. The app will also purportedly have ads, which have been a notoriously hard sell within apps in the past (the difference though, I think, is that Google uses the innocuous text ads thing, such as with Gmail, and it is not much of an annoyance, as are others attempts to put spinning blinking half page images on everything). Couple that with other stuff like Writely, the online word processing app, which Google now owns, and the Google online suite starts coming into view. And I guess its becoming more and more true in the long run that "the network is the computer", or as some like to say "Web 2.0" is a reality. UPDATE I actually got an invite today so I have been checking it out. This thing is fantastic. Pretty amazing, again, for a web app. Sure I like to scoff at the whole "Web 2.0" thing but this really is some fantastic DHTML that is clean and simple and seamless (I almost avoided even using the term AJAX, until this parenthetical statement ;)). UPDATE People like this eWeek clown dont get it. The collaboration aspect is what sets this apart. Its not as sophisticated an app as Excel but lets face it for 99.99999999% of spreadsheet users it DOESNT HAVE TO BE. It does the majority of stuff most users need quickly, easily (more easily than Excel in my opinion, common formulas are just a click) and online in a very collaborative fashion. This thing is really really nice. It will kick Microsofts ass, not because its better than Excel (which in terms of capability and features it is not), but because it doesnt have to be better, it just has to be easier and more useful for users - something the collab nature inherently gives it. Certainly Microsoft pimps recognize the beauty of that "doesnt have to be better" reasoning? (Anyone rememeber OS2 - it was "better" than Windows - so what?) UPDATE Microsoft apparently really doesnt get it either. "The innovations we're delivering in Excel in terms of new usability, new visual user interface advancements, support for collaboration and business intelligence with things like Excel Services are so far beyond [Google Spreadsheets] that it's like watching a time machine from 10 years ago." Basically saying "so what", well I predict that so what kicks their ass within 2 years. Again, the simplified Google spreadsheet is good enough for 99.99% of users AND it being totally online and collaborative with ease it what distinguishes it (not its formulas and charts and so on, if MS stays focused on that they will be left in the dust).