Call it observed parallelism, call it different ways of getting to the same place but either way, hot on the heels of Zoho opening up it’s services to Google and Yahoo account holders, Google has just advised that it is now possibly to view a spreadsheet directly from the URL (ie without being invited and logging in).
I have a situation where I run a cashflow sheet in Google docs, other people in my organisation need to access it but don’t like to use their Google accounts (no idea why – late adopters maybe!)
This feature will allow them to access the document without logging in – yay!
Obviously people need to think a little of the security ramifications of this but it’s an interesting development. Some folks are having a play on an open Google doc over here – check it out!
