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Gmail Offers to Open XLS in Spreadsheets  (View post)

Josue R. [PersonRank 10]

Friday, November 3, 2006
17 years ago7,934 views

I confirm that i also have the new feature "Open in Google Spreadsheets".

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I think that all this will eventually be rolled under the JotSpot framework.. A cube, which permits you to work like a desktop – gmail, d&S, calender, Project mngt, and the only other widget missing would be powerpoint.. and that will make an "office cube"!!

TOMHTML [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I works for me too.
A virtual popup appears :
"
Hey, whats this?

This file is your Gmail attachment imported to Google Spreadsheets.

Save your spreadsheets here, and get to them from any computer. Share with others, and everyone can edit online at the same time.

No more emailing attachments back and forth! Learn more
"

Ludwik Trammer [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I've sent them that idea just when Writely integration (with google accounts) started :) That's a great news. Now I'm waiting for them to do the same with docs and OpenOffice.org formats.

V [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I confirm it too

pjh [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I don't think this really amounts to lock-in – after all it still lets you download the attachment as an .xls file, meaning you can easily open it in the spreadsheet tool of your choice. If, on the other hand, they decided to make it so that it was impossible to download in this way – so you had to use their spreadsheets tool – that *would* be vendor lock in.

On the whole, Microsoft in the past tends to have employed more of a lock-in approach, such as only letting you use their software to save or load certain filetypes, making it difficult to change email address from Hotmail by not supporting exporting of contacts or message forwarding (or even POP access), and by setting their search engine as the default in IE, etc.

At the moment Google doesn't seem to be employing such techniques (in fact they're very good at suggesting or offering alternatives), and I would regard this new feature as simply a useful new integration between their products. Because Google (probably unlike Microsoft here) has traditionally been quite weak at this kind of integration, I think it's to be encouraged...

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I think it's a very soft lock-in at this point because it's only the power of convenience that keeps people in the system, a psychological switching cost... but still.

Let's take Gmail. Gmail now offers the corner bookmarks on top linking Google Docs and such; it automagically offers you to add dates from emails to Google Calendar; Gmail uses the Google Account, which you may also need on many other Google services; Gmail uses Google's own ad system AdWords, and only AdWords, to displays ads, and so on.
Of course, all of this seems natural to us. And I'm not saying these things don't make sense (I think they do!) – but how, as say a Google Calendar competitor, do you compete with this kind of convenience? How do you, as CalendarXYZ web app provider, get these nice little "add this to calendar" alerts popping up in Gmail for your CalendarXYZ, not Google Calendar? At the moment, you can't.

The more users Google has on individual services, and the more they cross-integrate their services, the harder it will be for a competitor to offer a single module of the web apps range which can beat that – even if that single module is *superior* to what Google has to offer in that position (and at that point, it would backfire on the user). Right now, Google is still forced to create superior modules themselves, and they still offer a lot in terms of import/export functionality (through APIs, standard-compliance, export features and such), but I don't know what the situation will be say a decade from now. And that makes me wonder if Google will ever be forced to share this space they're creating.

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I agree – Google will use lock-in. However, I think the "Google Account" is more of a lock-in than anything. Once a person has signed up to a simple service like IG, they can access anything they want... almost obliged to use what Google offer. Signing your life away, in a sense...

And yes, I'm getting the "spreadsheets" message too... cool :)

/pd [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

=="Gmail uses the Google Account, which you may also need on many other Google services"

bingo.. thats where jotSpot comes in ..I can my space with just about anyone I trust and also manage permissions.. and there is no need of a google account to share information!!

BW [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I'll have to try this feature. In the past, I've tried cutting and pasting an Excel doc into Google Spreadsheets and it took the data but none of the formulas. Hopefully this solves that problem.

Googlaxy [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Gmail users from Google Apps emails are always the last to have this features ;(

DPic [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Not showing up on the whats new pages for gdocs or gmail

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/whatsnew.html

http://www.google.com/mail/help/whatsnew.html

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I believe web 2.0 also stands for choice. So Google should allow other service to integrate as seamless as their own.

Ideally a calendar event should just be an xml document and your browser should ask you where to send the information to. Just like Firefox 2 does with RSS feeds.

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

I wonder why they don't immediately integrate Writely. It can't be that hard I think?

Andrew Hitchcock [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It would be neat if Google offered a plugin system for Gmail. Imagine a cross between Co-op and Gadgets. People with clever ideas could make XML documents, like with Co-op, that run a regex on the mail or search for patterns (such as UPS number, address, or a spreadsheet attachment) and then offers some option to the user. There could be perhaps be a few different versions. You might have one API for attachments (or maybe just have a list of services that support different filetypes, and let the user specify which ones they want) and one for putting stuff in the sidebar (like Calendars or Maps).

The users would then be able to subscribe to different plugins/feeds.

Andrew

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]Art-One, it is hard because writely is still a different code-base. Google didn't rewrite it for their own platform. They only changed the style and domain name.

Art-One [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

[put at-character here]Wouter: I know, but they do integration @ docs.google.com and after all it is just passing a link and then pass the binaries. Seems not so hard ...

Grass Circle [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I have it too. Great idea Google – the less we need Office the better

Sam Davyson [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Just for reference here is a picture of the cool pop up that you see:

http://sam.davyson.com/php/uploads/uploads/Sam/Picture%201.png

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Then you will need this one also:

http://www.seweso.com/blog/Already%20edited.JPG

Wouter Schut [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Deleting/renaming the file does have strange effects... it's not really rock-solid.

1. Save file from Gmail to docs
2. Change something
3. Delete file
4. Save file from Gmail to docs again
5. Old file is back...

And renaming is even weirder.

Martin [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I don't get it. First people go "Yahoo has a big advantage: it intergrates its services nicely whereas Google has just a bunch of isolated applications" and now that Google starts to integrate them better, people cry "lock-in".

Ganesha Sridhara [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Yes, it is very nice feature.

Its working fine.

Gene Perry [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

Can it really be lock in if it's free? Or is that a perceived cost? IMHO Seems that the nature of the app is evolving from a machine install to a web service and Google just likes to tinker with this sort of thing.

Reto Meier [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

IMHO there's a big difference between what Google's doing here and a traditional 'lock in' approach. Essentially they're adding a feature to make it easier to use their apps – they're not making it any more difficult than it was before to use someone else's.

What's the difference? In my mind a lock-in approach would be making Google Spreadsheets the only way to open it initially, but then letting you save it out from there.

I think Gmail giving you the option to create a new calendar entry based on message text is a much better example of lock in. Andrew's idea about plug-ins for Gmail would be a good way (and how cool!) to mitigate this.

Steve Areno [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I don't have it yet – any suggestions on how to get it in your gmail? Spreadsheets and docs to open as is would make gmail almost perfect...

BUGabundo [PersonRank 7]

17 years ago #

[quote]Martin 1 day ago
I don't get it. First people go "Yahoo has a big advantage: it intergrates its services nicely whereas Google has just a bunch of isolated applications" and now that Google starts to integrate them better, people cry "lock-in".[/quote]

Yes, I agree with u.
people are never satisfied

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