Google Docs gets Comments 2.0

"Great documents come from great discussions" - this idea inspired Google developers and they have created the new cool commenting system. At the moment it's available in Google Docs, but we hope that soon it will appear also in other Google services (Sites, Groups, Reader, Buzz ...). We can't say that it is something revolutionary but the developers took the best from Facebook, Twitter, somewhere else and created quite nice and convenient commenting system. First of all, it can be used as a context chat - in the right column near the document. Comments appear in real time and can be used to communicate with colleagues while editing the document.



But there is a problem with such a sidebar chat: the discussion can walk away from work or go the wrong way. In result, the entire right column is filled with usless information and the right discussion thread is lost. To solve this problem in the new Google-comments you can hide (resolve) the discussions that are no longer needed. Thus, in the sidebar users will see only useful and relevant messages. (The hidden branches can be displayed again in the full discussion view)



The full discussion view is like Facebook. It's a tree view, but with only one sub-level. And if you want to reply to someone in a branch you can use @tags like in Twitter. When you mention @user in a message he will receive a notification email. And he can reply directly via email - the comment will appear automatically in the discussion.

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