ThinkFree Docs - Incremental Excellence

ThinkFree, perhaps the Web's foremost online office productivity suite launched ThinkFree Docs on Tuesday. ThinkFree Docs allows users to search, share, tag and publish MS Office documents online the way some sites allow image sharing. The free service extends the existing ThinkFree online community of 275,000 users and adds functionality and collaboration. Additional search and filtering capabilities will help power this latest addition to the already potent tools at ThinkFree. The company's approach to content quality and quantity has been methodical out of necessity in order to establish highly valuable and relevant value for ThinkFree users. This is admirable, especially in a world of Betas in a hurry to supply sometimes "too much too fast." ThinkFree is the Web's most compatible alternative to MS Office and this latest addition adds still more flexibility and function to the suite.

Time and Addition

ThinkFree users have been contributing to the extensive user base there for over 2 years, and while other companies are just beginning to promote a community effect on their sites ThinkFree continues to incrementally add to their community features. There is no substitute for well thought out planning and implementation. User generated content and feedback are the backbone of every excellent Web 2.0 application.

"Our users are helping us shape the future of content collaboration, networking and sharing simply through the conversations we engage with them," said Jonathan Crow, Director of Marketing for ThinkFree.

Promising More

TJ Kang, CEO and Founder of ThinkFree has been the driving force behind the sequential improvement and development of this excellent tool. His vision seems to be an evolution of ThinkFree from tool, to tool bearing community and into an extensive network tool for building networks around the innovation. I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Kang via invitation, but was unfortunately unable to take advantage of it. The developer's leadership and methodology are evident in virtually everything ThinkFree promises and then delivers to its users.  

Obvious Enhancement

My visitation at ThinkFree fortified my already positive opinion of the direction this service is headed. Content over the last months has grown even more diverse and rich, while the new addition of profiles and the Docs section adds greatly to the site's character. Spreadsheets are not my gig but for those in need of examples the number and kinds available at ThinkFree should keep a user busy for some time. Some of the PowerPoint presentations I scanned were rather simplistic and a tad useless, but my time in that section should not be a definitive analysis on this content. To be fair, there were some rather extensive Biochemistry lecture presentations for the molecular biology student types.

Perfection is a Destination

I cannot see extensive collaboration between users creating "cutting edge" docs or presentations as something casually evident on ThinkFree. That being said, there is space for this site to create a community or network of already collaborating business using ThinkFree as a platform for sharing high quality and exclusive documents. This is already going on behind the scenes obviously. Users have unlimited flexibility in choosing what to share and how to share docs, so not seeing top notch docs in plain view is understandable.

My Take

The strength of ThinkFree is in the quality of the service in my view and secondarily in the vast content library and user base. Access to user docs can be accomplished from anywhere and now the possibility of professional networking has been enhanced greatly. This is a quality service and their commitment to user enhancements has been demonstrated over time with this latest addition, the open API release last month and added value start to present.