Google Docs: Apps on the Internet is finally here

Ever since I founded Einsteinet in 2000 and began to promote the concept of an intelligent Internet, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of being able to do everything from the web browser itself. Although I lost $50 million on Einsteinet mainly because I was five years ahead of the game, I haven’t lost that passion for seeing the day come when all I need to do is open Firefox, and everything will take place right there and in the cloud (or the brain as we used to call it back in 2001). And although Zoho is good, I still think that the people who are closest to giving us an intelligent Internet are the folks at Google, with many of their applications, and especially Google Docs (disclosure: Google are investors in Fon).

I had to give a presentation recently and I decided to do it with Google Docs. It ended up being incredibly easy to be in Firefox with many tabs open and add photos from the Internet to my presentation (searching via Google images) by simply clicking on a photo and dragging it to the Google Docs tab. You can also use your own photos and videos with ease, and it is even easier to use photos from the Internet, or videos on YouTube. The format of each photo adjusts accordingly. And when it comes to speed, forget about using Power Point, Keynote or Neo Office on a Mac. Now, what I wasn’t able to do is receive a presentation in my Gmail account and save it directly in Docs without first downloading it onto my computer and uploading it later to Google Docs. But what you can do is just send it to yourself at a special email address and keep it uploaded in Google Docs.

On most common apps, on what used to be Word, Power Point, Excel, Outlook, Google Docs, Gmail are all you need now. And they work especially well with Netbooks connected to WiFi or HSDPA. My favorite netbook? The Dell Mini with Ubuntu.