Microsoft Office for Facebook! Now wasn’t this bound to happen given that Microsoft has huge shares in Facebook and the social network has an influence on the Web that it can leverage for its own growth? Today at the f8 conference Facebook announced the coming of Docs, the online version of Microsoft Office, or to put it in a more clichéd manner; The Google Docs competitor.
Given that the social network is head over heels to make Social the default for the Web, Microsoft plans to capitalize on this and have users bring their connections to the Office suite online. Users will be able to integrate with Docs by using their social network credentials and begin to use the long dominant word processing suite online, a move that Microsoft had been planning since last year with much noise about the Microsoft Office 2010 product. The move is way better than launching the same using other methods like getting people to register or signup with their email accounts.
Think of it, the application thriving on the social activity of each user. Lets say for example that I write a document on Docs, the app may actually put up an update on my profile and it appears in user feeds, thus giving it ample promotion. Even if I were to block this application from posting such updates, with Facebook’s latest privacy tactics, many of my friends will be able to see that I use the application and would take it to be a recommendation. Am I being hypothetical? Maybe I am, but the statement from the Fuse blog summarizes what I have talking about in this post:
Documents can be created directly within the app, or can be uploaded from your PC. After starting work on a document alone, you might then choose a few others with whom to share it. Or you might instead share it with all your friends, or you might share it with the world.
That’s social development of a product, virally.
