New features for 2008!
It's been two months since we launched Google Presentations and already we've got new toys! We've been listening to your feedback and working hard to get you new features as quickly as possible (so keep the suggestions coming). 2008 is going to be a feature packed year …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google Presentations is barely two months old — launched in September 2007 as the third leg of the Docs & Spreadsheets suite — and Google is already shipping its first post-launch feature batch, framing 2008 as a 'feature packed year' driven by user feedback. The pickup by Google Blogoscoped under the headline 'Embed Google Presentations' points to slideshow embedding as the marquee addition, turning presentations from standalone documents into content that lives on any web page.
First-order effects
- Users of the young Presentations app get faster iteration than the product showed at launch, with embedding letting them publish slide decks directly into blogs and sites rather than sharing files.
Second-order effects
- Every embed acts as free distribution for Google's office suite, putting pressure on rivals in the emerging web-office field to match both the feature cadence and the publish-anywhere model.
Third-order effects
- If the feedback-driven shipping rhythm holds across the Docs suite, office software's unit of competition shifts from packaged release cycles to continuous web updates — with embedded content, not installed apps, as the growth channel.
The trend: Productivity software is moving from boxed, version-numbered releases to continuously updated web apps that spread through embedded content.