Microsoft Office for Facebook

Yep… Microsoft has been working on, and is very close to releasing, web apps for Facebook.  No, you don’t have to visit other people’s Microsoft Office profiles to get points to feed your “office assistants” like Clippy and that dog.  But, according to Microsoft, you can “discover, create, and share Microsoft Office documents with your Facebook friends.  Built using Microsoft Office 2010 – Docs for Facebook lets you work from just about anywhere within the familiar Office experience.”

So… basically, it’s the same thing you can get on your computer, mobile phone, or a web server hosting Microsoft Office Web Apps…. only, just in case during the 3 out of the 4 things you do on a daily basis, you forget to create an Excel document, you can do it while you’re harvesting your crops on Farmville.   Excellent move, Microsoft.

This seems unnecessary.  Facebook should be a social entertainment platform, in my opinion.  I don’t use it for any serious communication… except when I send long detailed apologies to girls who I like and routinely embarrass myself in front of when I send drunk text messages letting them know how I have it all figured out… they just need to break up with their boyfriend of 4 years, and we’ll be happy forever.

Office Web Apps seems great… and like what Sharepoint should have been… but I honestly haven’t had enough time to play with it.  However, in my very limited review of Office Docs for Facebook, I really did like the interface, and it seemed simple and uncluttered.  And, the really good part… it’s called “Docs.”  That’s the product name.  It’s not called “Microsoft Docs 2010 for Facebook Premium Social Networking Edition with Excel, Powerpoint, Word, OneNote, and more…. for web based computers.”  Just Docs.  Nice, and simple.

If this is just a cool way to post an Office document to my wall, and have other Facebook users read it, maybe make comments, and share it with their friends…. I like it.  If it tries to bring Google Docs-like collaboration and function into a website that primarily exists for college students to post pictures of the drunk girls they had their dicks in the night before, it seems to me to be a product that has no reason to exist and Microsoft should just pull the plug before they waste more money on one more stupid idea *cough*Windows Live*cough*.

Anyway, check it out for yourself:  http://docs.com.

You can add yourself to a waiting list, as the service is still in Beta, and they’ll add it to your Facebook account when it’s your turn.

I’m really interested to see what this develops into, especially since this is the first I’ve heard of this, and it’s allegedly already close to launching.