Google Docs and Spreadsheets
Written by Becky Bitzenhofer (contact - e-mail) -- December 6th, 2007 | Recommend ThisLately, I seem to be getting more invites to view a Google document (rather than a Word document). I guess I’m not surprised though. It has been just over a year since Google Docs and Spreadsheets was officially released, and it has been just under a year since Microsoft released Office 2007. As many know, Office 2007 includes a whole new interface that is unfamiliar, and potentially frustrating, to the veteran Office user. Google Docs and Spreadsheets have also undergone changes, with a major user interface overhaul in June and the release of Google Presentation in September. After receiving my 4th invitation to view a Google document in 2 weeks, I decided to take a look at traffic to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, since its bundled release in October 2006*. The chart below depicts overall traffic to Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and includes the break down of those that viewed a document and those that viewed a spreadsheet.
This chart shows us three things.
- The user interface overhaul and subsequent intense marketing in June seems to have ignited traffic to Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
- Usage of Google Docs is consistently comparable with usage of Google Spreadsheets.
- In its first full year, Google Docs and Spreadsheets has seen an 84% year-over-year increase.
After looking at the traffic, I wanted to go a little deeper in analysis. Another measure of a site’s success is the average stay on that site, defined as time spent per visit (in minutes).
Here we see that while traffic to Google Docs and Spreadsheets may be comparable, Google Spreadsheets originally saw much higher attention than Google Docs. Attention evened out when traffic increased in June, suggesting that people are not only viewing both Google documents and Google spreadsheets, but are equally engaged with each. Increased engagement indicates that people intend to continue to use these applications, and they are not novelties.
I expect this trend to continue, and the growth of Google Docs and Spreadsheets to be substantial. Google Docs and Spreadsheets are free and easy to use. In addition, they offer online sharing and collaboration, which is becoming a complete necessity in today’s workplace. The more people share links to their documents, the more people will be exposed to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Google doesn’t have to do much, as Docs and Spreadsheets are viral by nature and should continue to spread. Google can move on to saving the world (such as with this project), while users continue to spread the news about a possible alternative to Office 2007.
*Google Spreadsheets was released in June 2006, but then bundled with the Google Documents release in September.
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December 6th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I use Google docs on a regular basis.
I tried using Google spreadsheets once or twice. It was sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. It took me forever to enter just a little bit of time - lots of waiting, slow/non-responsive app/UI.
Time spent on Google spreadsheets could *easily* be attributed to that, couldn’t it?
December 6th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I use some times Google Docs and Spreadsheets can you compare or had you compare the several on line competitors.
@ Off Topic can you do by regions ? like Europe, Asia, ….
@ Off Topic In Search terms can you give information by Language? Like Spanish, Portuguese, French and others …
Best Regards
December 10th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I have tried google spreadsheets and I was not impresed. As a native microsoft office user I am comfortable using excel. When I tried google spreadsheets I had to learn a “new” excel. Instead of learning something new, I did some research and found a company that has a way to collaborate online in real time using excel. Expresso is a product that allows users to share spreadsheets, collaborate with other users, maintain control over each spreadsheet, and has lots of great features. Using Expresso is just like using excel, exceot you are online. It is great, I recommend checking it out. http://www.expressocorp.com
December 19th, 2007 at 1:02 am
A very interesting article. I recently read an article on MS Office vs. web-based office applications (http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/web_services_browser/rip_the_web_20_office_suite.html) . To summarize, NPD conducted a survey of 600 PC users, and were asked “Have you heard about online, browser-based office productivity applications like Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets, gOffice, etc.?” 73.2% of the sample have never heard of and never tried such an application. Less than 10% have ever tired a web office application. (I know that there are only 600 observations, but I think the results still show something significant.) Google could do some serious marketing and change these numbers around. But even though Google docs is free and has the resources to get people to make the switch, I feel that MS Office has a pretty strong hold in the market and will be around for a lot longer. The net browser war seems to be a good predictor of things to come. Firefox is slowly chipping away at IE, and there are other browsers in the fight as well. However, MS continues to have a majority of the market share (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers)
On a side note, Google has had StarOffice bundled in its Google Pack (pack.google.com)for a while now. StarOffice are non-web based office package from Sun.
January 6th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Great info! If anyone is interested in seeing some great personal uses for Google Docs and Spreadsheets, check out http://www.squidoo.com/GoogleAps
Glenn
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April 4th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Thank you for your article. I didn´t know anything about google Docs and Spreadsheets. Know i can try it.
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