First-Look Review: Revised Google Docs With Realtime Collaboration

The new version mirrors changes made by each participant in a collaboration session to other screens more quickly - not in the microsecond needed for true realtime collaboration, IW says, but fast enough to make it much more viable to work together online.

"When it comes to collaboration, the old Google Documents (the word processing part of the Google Docs suite, which also includes spreadsheets and presentations) could take the changes made to a document made by one user and mirror them out to any other users who were editing that document at the same time.

The process required nothing of clients but a Web browser and Internet connection. It usually took 10 to 15 seconds, but it was still faster than the desktop alternative which, from a publish-and-subscribe architecture point of view, isn't remarkably different. It's just that the discreet steps (depending on which exact solution is in place) take even longer."