Would you like to collaborate and share Office documents, PowerPoint presentations, and more with your learners and colleagues?

Well I'm using the new Office Web Apps with my Facebook friends via http://Docs.com.

I included the new Office Web Apps on SkyDrive in a recent blog, and was excited over the features it had but wished it could do more. One major problem, with the Office Web Apps is that few learners and/or colleagues use Windows Live SkyDrive on a daily basis. This means that if I want to share a document online with a friend, they would have to signup for a new account and figure out how to use it. Docs.com is a new service that removes this complexity. It integrates the Web Apps with Facebook and lets users collaborate on documents with your Facebook friends. Let's look at how you can use this with your friends and colleagues.

To Get Started

  1. Head over to the http://docs.com website to start sharing Office documents with Facebook friends. Click the Sign in link on the right side to add it to your Facebook.

  2. If you're not already logged into to Facebook, enter your Facebook account information and click Login. Note: that some browsers may block the login and upload windows as popups, so you may want to allow them to open.

  3. Once signed in, you are ready to get to work. Click the Add a Doc link to upload an existing document or create a new Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file.

  4. Docs may request permission to manage your pages when you try to upload a document; if so click Allow to continue.

  5. Now you can upload a new document, and select who you want to view and edit it. You can make the document fully private, share it with individual friends, or make it public.
  6. The Web Apps themselves work just like the Office Web Apps on SkyDrive, which has the same features and limitations. Note: there doesn't seem to be an option to open a Docs.com document in Office on your computer. This means that you will need to do all of the editing online, or download a copy to edit separately.

  7. As with the Web Apps on SkyDrive, Docs.com works great as an Office viewer, but the editor may not support all of the features in more advanced documents.

  8. You can add a title to your document from the right sidebar, as well as share the document with your friends and post it on your wall.

  9. It's simple to add friends to edit or view your document.

  10. You can post updates about the document and see what other people said about it from the Wall section on the sidebar as well.

  11. You can easily access your own documents and the ones your friends have shared from the tabs on the top of the Docs.com page - OR, from the front page, you can see some featured public documents. These can help you get ideas of great things to share with your friends.

  12. You can Like or comment on other people's documents while viewing them, which is a great way to help your friends discover public documents you find interesting.

This is the document I shared see what I mean at http://docs.com/1MID.

Visit http://docs.com to find out more or look at the PowerPoint Presentation at http://docs.com/1JIQ.