Comments on: Google Docs takes two steps, backward?

By: Ryan Platte

Ryan Platte — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:00:24 +0000

I agree it’s clunky, but folders have not replaced tags. You can put the same document in multiple folders, just like you could tag them with multiple tags. Try it.

By: Brandice

Brandice — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:47:03 +0000

I agree with you on the feature change… Tags are the future and this new folder dealio is a step backward. :\

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:17:38 +0000

As an aside: I do not believe that either Jeff nor Greg Veen had anything to do with Google Docs - it is just that I don’t have too many contacts inside of Google at the moment - oh, maybe Dustin Diaz? Anyone else have any contacts we could ask to see why they made this switch?

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:12:10 +0000

Zach: Excellent point. And perhaps Google wasn’t seeing a lot of Docs users that were using tags to begin with, and that is why they are switching to, the much more familiar, folder structure? Perhaps I can find someone at Google that can let me know.

/me looks up Veen’s phone number.

By: Zach Hale

Zach Hale — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:10:13 +0000

Colin: I guess a lot depends on how you use Google Docs and it doesn’t seem to affect me much. We’ll see if I turn around.

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:07:32 +0000

Matt Harwood: One of the many reasons I’ve now switched to Camino is because I’m able to use all of Google’s Web services without running into the issues I do with Safari or Omniweb (or any Webkit powered browser).

By: Matt Harwood

Matt Harwood — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:02:10 +0000

Agreed on the tagging - quite annoying.

Can’t seem to get it to work in Omniweb at all? Anyone else have issues with Webkit browsers?

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:48:39 +0000

Alex: Re: Google Reader - that is one of the reasons I do not use it. Well, that and latency (probably not Google’s fault).

Being able to organize documents in folders is great, and I think it was something that Docs was definitely missing. But not being able to tag documents with relevant keywords, that may or may not appear in the document or folder name it is in, is a huge thing to lose.

For instance, I may have a document that refers to you as Alex throughout, and I may put it into a Folder called “Friends” or something. But, when I do a search for Hillman, I’d get 0 results returned. Being able to tag the document with the keyword of ‘Alex Hillman’ would eliminate this problem.

Ugh, I could go on about this stuff forever! Google! Buy Viddler, and make YouTube / Google Video much more valuable, so that I can come work for you and help you not make such mistakes. Call me on Friday, after 6pm, on my iPhone.

By: Alex Hillman

Alex Hillman — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:43:08 +0000

I’m with you…i’m not thrilled about this. I don’t like the folder-usage on google reader either. It makes a feed with multiple tags show up in more than one place, which is confusing, and removes the relevance of the tags.

The ability to switch between tags and folders, IMO, is the killer feature. Let the user decide. that way, the people stuck in folders can have their folders and people who “get” tags, can tag.

By: Colin Devroe

Colin Devroe — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:58:26 +0000

Zach: Perhaps I should update this post a little. I want to be very clear. I like the updates, and I do agree with you that for new users - this may make it easier for them to organize their docs. However, I’m not happy that tags became folders. I would have liked to have seen both remain.

By: Zach Hale

Zach Hale — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:11:12 +0000

I honestly don’t think it’s that bad. The majority of the interface is much welcomed in my opinion as I’ve been frustrated in the past with it lacking quite a bit of the new interface.

You criticize it for using “folders” now. I don’t think this is such a bad thing either. I love tags and all but tags arent always the be all end all solution. Sometimes folders work great. When I create documents on my desktop I’m constrained to folders and forever that has worked out perfectly well. Text documents are normally focused and, at least for me, most of the time work great for me. I can’t say that folders work best for a great deal of types of information - because they dont - but for these documents I think they work fine.

Either way, you can still use them however you would like but this change in interface and metaphor helps new users who are used to contstrained desktop systems to use their product and I think it will work for them.

Anyways, time will tell.