A New Google Docs Homepage

As previously anticipated, Google Docs has a new homepage that's better matched for managing files, not just editable documents.

 There's a sidebar that shows a small thumbnail and some helpful information about the selected file. Google added new filters for images and videos, for public and private files, but dropped the higher search form, which was more difficult to use. The drawback is that there are many search features that are no longer obtainable in the border and you need to use operators to get them back.

The slideshow feature rented from Google Wave is one of the most useful additions:

For some reason, Google Docs has a new name for folders: they're now called collections. "Collections are designed to unite the best features of labels and folders. A file can live in multiple collections, just like with Gmail labels. Collections can also be stored hierarchically, just like folders on your desktop. And of course, collections can be shared, just like you can share docs," explains Google. Technically speaking, none of these features is new, but it's much easier to add a file to multiple folders collections. Unfortunately, Google's new terms will probably confuse users and many people won't understand that clicking "Organize" lets you add a file to a collection.

Google also dropped checkboxes, so now it's much more difficult to select multiple files: you need to use Shift for adjacent selections or Control for scattered files (Cmd if you're using a Mac).

Another new feature is priority sorting, which orders files based on importance. For example, a starred document that has been last rationalized 5 hours ago is likely to rank higher than a more recent document that hasn't been starred. Google says that it's like Gmail's Priority Inbox, but there's an important difference: Gmail always sorts conversations by date.

Overall, the new Google Docs homepage is a mixed bag. Google tries to morph Google Docs into an online storage service, while moving away from the initial goal of the service: editing documents online. Suddenly Google Docs is no longer an suitable name for the service, 1 GB of free storage is not enough, the APIs are no longer useful because they're limited to editable documents and Google's applications seem incomplete because they can't handle all the files that can be uploaded. The new homepage can't address these issues, but it manages to make the interface more complicated: now it's a lot easier to open a file when you want to select it and to select the file when you want to open it.

Tip: If you don't like the new interface, there's an option at the top of the page that lets you temporarily switch to the old version.

Google Wave to Be Discontinued

Google's blog announced that Google Wave, the innovative in communication platform released last year, will be now discontinued.

"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have been liked. We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will then maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for the use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have been driven many of Wave's innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as a open source, so customers and the partners can continue the innovation we began."

Google Wave has a lot of the interesting features, but the interface is confusing and difficult to use. While many thought that Google Wave will reinvent email, Google's service combined as an online document editor with an instant messenger. Google Wave allows you to create "live" documents that are edited collaboratively in the real-time, but it's more than a conversational version of the Google Docs. It's based on an open protocol, so you can edit a wave using the multiple services. It's extensible so you can build gadgets and robots that add the new functionality.

Google Wave had a lot of potential, but Google didn't manage to build a compelling user that experience and define some use cases for the application. Instead of building a general-purpose interface for the Google Wave, Google could've used the platform to create the multiple applications with clearly-defined goals: a new version of the Google Chat, a new version of the Google Docs, a brainstorming app etc.

Now that Google Wave is discontinued, some of its feature will be added to the other Google services (Gmail, Google Docs), but the platform will now vanish. It's clear that Google doesn't want to invest in the niche services, which is a big opportunity for the startups. "We want to do things that matter to a large number of the people at the scale," said Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in an interview.