A service called SharedDoc already makes it easy to collaborate on Microsoft Word documents by building a conversation in the annotations around a text. Now SharedBook, the company behind SharedDoc, is expanding the service to include something trickier -- Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software.
What SharedDoc is carrying over to PowerPoint is its focus on comments and conversation. Compared to a simpler service like Crocodoc, SharedDoc focuses on the idea that you can have an extended, in-depth conversation around documents. To make that possible, SharedDoc extracts the text from a PowerPoint slide, then lets you add comments to individual sections like you can in Word. If you want to discuss images and graphics, you can also make comments on the slide as a whole, but the text extraction features lets you really argue about specific points.
"The more granular you can get, the more dialogue can transpire," said chief executive Caroline Vanderlip.
As with the Word collaboration features, the big goal behind SharedDoc's PowerPoint support is to replace the flurry of emails between team members debating how to revise a document. It also replaces the multiple drafts of a document stuck in a file drawer. Comments are all attributed to specific collaborators, and cannot be edited by others, so SharedDoc can become an important record of the discussion and revisions around a specific text.
The service is currently available for free as part of its beta test. Vanderlip said she plans to start charging later this year, and although the pricing details haven't been decided yet, it should cost less than $19.95 per month.