Google runs the world.That statement is no longer shocking or surprising for the masses, especially journalists. But knowing that, why is our industry still relying on desktop word processing programs, ancient form of email with outdated features or even the traditional 2 p.m. meetings in the conference room?
Google over the last few years has pumped (and bought) out some of the web's most innovative and interesting tools, all of which can be pieced together to make a perfectly networked Google newsroom.
By simply integrating four Google programs into the newsroom, you can guarantee that every writer, photographer and editor is on the same page, making the stressing over deadlines a thing of the past.
1. Set up a GMail account.
This is not only the portal in which all of the other programs will be accessed through, but the web's best email client.
Offering a huge amount of storage (about 7,500 mb), both text and video chat capabilities and the ability to label messages by category, GMail has taken the needs of every email user and put it to use on one platform.
2. Let your files live online with
Google Documents.
This is by far the most useful and powerful tool that Google has ever built, and just by playing with it for a few minutes, you may think they built it just for journalists.
Documents or Docs for short, lets you upload any file to Google's cloud server and store it online. It doesn't matter if it is a .docx or .swf, any file is accepted. The truly amazing part comes in though when you upload an editable document such as a word processing file, you can share the file with your editor and have him edit the copy live online. Eliminating the confusion of mailing edited copy back and forth.
Docs is also a powerful document creation tool. Users can create word files, powerpoints or spreadsheets on Google Docs and have the same editing and creation tools as on any desktop program.
3. Meeting just went surfing on Google Wave.
Note: Wave is still in beta, but a request can be made to get an invitation to start using the tool.
No more meetings... in person. You don't need them anymore with the launch of Google's newest web tool,
Wave. Like Docs, Wave is a real-time online calibration tool which allows users to create new conversations in one place.
When you start a new Wave and invite friends to it, everyone is able to post text, pictures, files, video and more, and then converse about them when they want.
Imagine it as a Facebook conversation on a wall, but with the ability to add files to the conversation, make it exclusive to specific people and go back to comment and re-hash an old conversation that may have gotten lost in the mix.
Wave has the power to bring every aspect of a newsroom together into one project even if they are separated by three floors.
And did I mention that all of these tools are free, and you only need the one log-in? That's pretty important too.
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Flash is dead.
