If Google Docs is about sharing documents and spreadsheets, Microsoft is now fighting back by tapping into the biggest sharing network on the planet: Facebook. Today at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Microsoft is tapping into Facebook to create Docs.com. The app, which was created by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, is a way for Facebook users to share and collaboratively edit Microsoft Office documents.
Docs.com can be shared with your Facebook friends, and the documents can be switched back and forth between the Web and the desktop. Microsoft, of course, is also moving Office online, but I have a feeling Docs is going to take off faster just through Facebook. Microsoft partnered with Facebook to build Docs.com to show what could be done with Facebook’s new Open Graph API and Social plugins. For instance, Docs.com will begin using Facebook’s new auto-login feature it announced earlier today so that users won’t even need to click on a Facebook Connect button to get started.
Facebook also partnered with Pandora and Yelp on early apps. With Pandora, for instance, it will take advantage of the Open Graph API to learn what other music you and your friends like across the Web, and finetune your playlist as a result. And with Yelp, it might know what restaurants you or your friends have liked elsewhere on the Web (using Facebook’s new soon-to-be-ubiquitous like button).
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and...
Pandora Radio is an internet radio service, recommendation service, and the custodian of the Music Genome Project. Users enter a song or artist that they enjoy, and the service responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Users provide feedback on approval or disapproval of individual songs, which Pandora takes into account for future selections. While listening, users are offered the ability to buy the songs or albums at various online retailers. As part of the Music Genome Project, over...
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
