I think I may have been a tad remiss. Granted, I did cover the feature for exchanging comments and , but here we are on day 20 of and I haven't really covered one of the defining features of Google Docs--real-time collaboration.

I have spent years "collaborating" the old-fashioned way. I write a draft of a document, and I send it off to a peer or editor for review. They take their turn commenting and editing and send it back to me. I then take my turn revising the document based on the comments made, and so it goes. Collaborating like that is inefficient--like trying to have a conversation on a walkie-talkie where only one party can speak at a time.

Collaborating like that can also turn into complete chaos when there are too many parties involved. I worked on a paper once where I received edits from one manager, then while I was revising it I received different edits from another manager that conflicted with the edits I was already making. Trying to work out which changes supersede which when there are multiple copies of the same document floating around can be a nightmare.

Enter, Google Docs. With Google Docs, rather than sending my document via email as a file attachment, I can just share it with my editor. My editor and I can both view the same document online at the same time.

At the top right of the display there is a small bar that lets you know which other users are currently signed in and viewing the document. An arrow at the right of that bar opens up a chat window where all parties currently viewing the document can chat and share thoughts about the document.