Google Docs

Yet more in the vein of collaborative writing-- has anyone checked out Google docs yet? I kept expecting it to come up in class yesterday, especialy when we were talking about Sophie.

Anyway, Google acquired Writely--a text editing program that allows multiple people to work on the same document simultaneously, sort of a bare-bones, online MS Word--about six months ago. Since then, they've integrated the Writely features into the Google buffet of options, so that now anyone with a Google account can upload and store their documents through Google Docs. Check it out if you haven't.

After the owner of the account/document has created it/uploaded it, he can then invite others to "collaborate" with him on editing the document--it exists online like a web page or your email, accessible from many different computers simultaneously. The level of collaboration is definitely limited--i.e. to the specific people one invites--but it allows for simultaneous contribution and editorship that's not possible with the other word processing software with which I'm familiar. Even from a very practical standpoint, it eliminates the hassle of mailing documents back and forth as attachments from person to person (or from myself at the library to myself in my dorm room).

I've been using it to work on my final paper for this reason (the emailing thing) as well as because my final paper is on collaborative writing, and I've got to figure out some way to "deliver" it that fits the bill.

So, based upon my personal experience, I like Google Docs, but I find it sort of weird. I feel like, by putting my paper online in this way, I'm setting it one step away from myself, one bit closer to official, published matter. I sort of worry about it, sitting alone on Google's server--which is strange, I know. It doesn't feel quite like it's mine anymore. And as soon as people begin to edit it in earnest, I wonder if (like Shock and Awe suggested in class) I will begin to feel totally divorced from it?