google docs and spreadsheets posts

Filed under: Office, Web services, Google

Google Docs & Spreadsheets tells you how dumb you are

by Brad Linder Jul 19th 2007

It looks like Google's thrown a few new features into Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Once upon a time, clicking on the "Word count" button in the file menu resulted in pretty much what you'd expect: a word count.

Now there's a whole slew of new features, including character, paragraph, and sentence counts. But the really cool stats are under the "Readability" column. There, you can find out how many words per sentence, sentences per paragraph, and words per page you have. And that data lets Google use a few different formulas to tell you how easy or difficult your passage is to read.

For example, the blog entry you're reading right now is written at a 6th grade reading level. But if I throw in a few big words like transcendentalism, defenestration, mononucleosis, and antidisestablishmentarianism, it jumps up to a 7th grade level.

Tags: google docs, google docs and spreadsheets, GoogleDocs, GoogleDocsAndSpreadsheets, word count, WordCount

Filed under: Office, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft working on Google Apps competitor?

by Brad Linder Mar 9th 2007

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch caught what could be evidence that Microsoft is prepping some sort of online spreadsheet program, which would probably be a stripped down version of Excel.

Microsoft Developer Tod Hilton posted on his personal blog that he's moving from Microsoft's Global Foundation Services to the company's Excel Services team. And yesterday, he wrote that the product "has tons of potential and will probably be competing with the likes of Google Spreadsheets, DabbleDB, Zoho, and JotSpot Tracker."

A short while later, Hilton removed that text and updates his post to say that he was removing his "personal opinions." The implication is that we shouldn't read too much into what he wrote on the post, it may have just been excitement about moving to a new team. Either Microsoft is planning on developing an online spreadsheet application, or Hilton really thinks they should and wrote his post in a moment of blind enthusiasm.

Obviously there's not enough information here to determine whether Microsoft is developing online versions of other Office programs such as Word or PowerPoint. But one can dream. While we're dreaming, let's imagine that these applications would all be free.

Tags: dabbledb, excel, google docs and spreadsheets, GoogleDocsAndSpreadsheets, jotspot, spreadsheet, zoho

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google docs and spreadsheets posts

Google Docs & Spreadsheets tells you how dumb you are

Microsoft working on Google Apps competitor?

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