If Google Docs is about sharing documents and spreadsheets, Microsoft is now fighting back by tapping into the biggest sharing network on the planet: Facebook. Today at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Microsoft is tapping into Facebook to create Docs.com. The app, which was created by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, is a way for Facebook users to share and collaboratively edit Microsoft Office documents.
Docs.com can be shared with your Facebook friends, and the documents can be switched back and forth between the Web and the desktop. Microsoft, of course, is also moving Office online, but I have a feeling Docs is going to take off faster just through Facebook. Microsoft partnered with Facebook to build Docs.com to show what could be done with Facebook’s new Open Graph API and Social plugins. For instance, Docs.com will begin using Facebook’s new auto-login feature it announced earlier today so that users won’t even need to click on a Facebook Connect button to get started.
Facebook also partnered with Pandora and Yelp on early apps. With Pandora, for instance, it will take advantage of the Open Graph API to learn what other music you and your friends like across the Web, and finetune your playlist as a result. And with Yelp, it might know what restaurants you or your friends have liked elsewhere on the Web (using Facebook’s new soon-to-be-ubiquitous like button).